Comment: We're not short of nurses; we're short good management

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Kelli Johnson / For The Herald

For years, the story that there is a nursing shortage has cycled its way through media headlines.

How the public defines the nursing shortage is a result of colleges’ inability to educate new nurses at the pace of the growing demand of our communities. For so long, nurses in the profession were able to compensate for this shortage by working overtime with many working closer to 60 hours a week instead of the standard 32 hours. Hospitals business model relied on nurses to work overtime in order to meet the needs of patients, their customers. Will hospitals publicly admit that? No.

What if I told you that there about 40,000 nurses who are licensed in Washington state who are not working in health care? Imagine if they were, could it still be said that there aren’t enough nurses? If there are enough nurses then why did they step away from the profession?

What happens when nurses — in the business of giving the best health care they can to every patient they have — are endangered by hospitals who want to save as much money as they can?

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-were-not-short-of-nurses-were-short-good-management/

[Raven123]

1. What happens when hospitals practice "just right" staffing?

They are either short-staffed and calling around to see if they can get someone to work extra, asking nurses to work past their shift, or require nurses to be on call. Conversely, when patient census is low, they send nurses home. It’s been a while, but I know of charge nurses who spent half of their shift calculating patient acuity (how sick the patients were) to decide whether to add or subtract for the following shift.

It’s absurd. “Just in time” may work for stocking shelves at Walmart, but for health care, it’s not workable

[Turbineguy]

2. I have learned that organizations work best

at optimal efficiency, not 100 percent.

Obviously "optimal" varies between situations. But the point is that as you get closer to 100 percent, things start going wrong. In medicine, you can't have that.

[Sedona]

3. My daughter is an RN

and a damn good one. Too bad she left the field because of the ridiculous hours and shitty compensation.

She makes more money in less hours and way easier work selling real estate.