Nursing Shortages and COVID

The healthcare industry has been put on high alert ever since the COVID pandemic. Currently 89% of healthcare organizations are experiencing some sort of staffing shortages, and for certain industries, such as nursing homes, that issue is only made worse.

Nurses in particular are an essential and particularly overworked group within the healthcare industry. The majority of nurses report feeling overworked, overstressed, and exhausted. More than half are currently even considering leaving their positions within the next six months.

This creates a poor landscape when considering the essential role of nurses. Already in nursing homes there is shared equipment and a shortage of masks, overworked nurses will only continue to lower the potential quality of infection control in medical scenarios. 

Nursing homes are already working off of small financial margins or even deficits, any extra stress put on their systems can be lethal to their futures. During the pandemic more than 300 nursing homes have shut down already, with many more currently on the brink in 2022.

A potential solution, as explored by groups like IPCWell, is groups outside of the direct medical community offering training to nurses. This gives nurses a bit more support and control in a system where they’re perpetually overworked. It’s not a perfect solution, at the end of the day the only permanent solution would be more nurses, but it’s a strong grass roots band-aid.

Source: IPCWell.com