NURS FPX 8045 Assessment 7 Literature Review

Name

Capella university

NURS-FPX 8045 Doctoral Writing and Professional Practice

Prof. Name

Date

Conceptualizing a Potential Project-Signature Assessment

Nursing shortage is a critical issue in health settings, affecting patient care and safety. Understanding and resolving practice gaps is crucial for efficient medical services. Lima Memorial Hospital (LMH) is also grappling with clinical disparity due to nurse understaffing. Scarcity leads to nurse pressure, burnout, and substandard patient care. A recent study found that in 2021, shortages of nurses cost healthcare facilities $24 billion, and in 2022, $86 billion in health expenses (Beauvais et al., 2023). Inadequate staff levels lead to compromised care for patients, which leads to adverse events. The assessment provides a summary of the practice gap and PICO(T) question and discusses solutions to interact with stakeholders to address the nurse understaffing issue at LMH.

Practice Gap and PICO(T) Question

Nursing shortage at LMH creates an immense practice gap in patient care regarding care quality. A recently conducted staff poll at LMH indicated an elevated rate of nurse burnout, including 65% claiming higher workloads due to shortages in staff. LMH is experiencing inadequate nurse-to-patient ratios due to a lack of staffing, which can result in extra exertion, burnout, and a lower level of care. The United States of America (USA) is facing a significant nursing shortage, with an estimated 3.2 million nursing staff needed to cover the gap (Tamata & Mohammadnezhad, 2023).

Ohio Nursing Association (ONA) stated that 83.21% of nurses encountered significant turnover, which resulted in inadequate staffing and unsatisfactory care service. The data reveals significant problems in the use of assets, insufficient planning, retention, and hiring approaches, and insufficient training related to nurses’ skills. Limited nurse staffing is connected with missing care, which leads to adverse incidents (Nantsupawat et al., 2022). Understaffing issues are directly impacting health results, nurse contentment, and organizational compliance with quality medical care.

NURS FPX 8045 Assessment 7 Literature Review

Establishing a PICOT query is essential to bridging the nursing shortage practice disparity identified at LMH. The PICOT strategy delivers tailored research that addresses pertinent challenges (Hosseini et al., 2024). The PICOT question is: In licensed nurses at LMH (P), does improved retention and recruitment policy (I), compared to current strategies without adequate policy (C) enhance nurses’ satisfaction and retention (O) over 12 weeks (T)? PICO(T) comprises recruiting and keeping staff policy interventions such as creating a favorable work environment, providing nurses with training and remuneration packages, and developing an effective retention and hiring method (Pressley & Garside, 2023). The PICO(T) questions focus on increasing the continuation and job satisfaction of licensed nurses at LMH, enhancing the level of care and patient safety within 12 weeks.

Bridging this practice disparity through a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) initiative allows for significant advances in healthcare, improves medical results, and strengthens the organization’s commitment to providing high-quality healthcare. Applying policy-based interventions is consistent with the DNP’s goal of improving patient results. The intervention is consistent with the DNP project; it promotes evidence-based procedures to resolve staff shortages (Pressley & Garside, 2023). The DNP project comprises establishing, executing, and measuring the performance of the change by applying feedback and discussions with stakeholders regarding retention and hiring strategies to improve the understaffing at LMH. Retention and hiring policies result in improved outcomes, like enhanced nursing job satisfaction, nursing skills, and care quality by optimizing nurses-to-patient ratios.

 Research Related to Practice Gap

The gap caused by unfilled nursing posts required to fulfill patient care needs, along with the various factors that lead to understaffing, has received substantial attention in recent research. Research by Tamata and Mohammadnezhad (2023) exhibited that the nurse workforce shortage is a major concern, impacting around one billion patients globally who require high-quality medical care. Increased strain and stress conditions among nurses lead to a lower standard of nursing care, jeopardizing patient safety and boosting patient mortality. The credible study highlighted the causes contributing to the