Strategic Plan Addressing the Nursing Shortage in Medical Surgical Unit

Introduction

Nurse’s role becomes of crucial importance especially when it comes to the surgical unit where the nurses play the role of healers to the physicians with everything that the doctor might require to make the processes successful. As noted by Ball, Doyle, and Oocumma (2015), in their article, the shortage of nurses in all levels of the country continue to jeopardize the huge strides that the healthcare sector has made in the recent history. According to research mainly this shortage results from what is termed as inappropriate preparation of student nurses with limited exposure and preparation in a surgical unit. As such, many of these graduates have shown reluctance in seeking the jobs opportunities in the surgical units more so because of lack of the technical know-how that could enable them to fit in and adapt well as the rest. In an endeavor to combat this problem, the strategic plan endeavors to establish ways through which more nurses could work in surgical units as well as proposing measures that could change the way of training that could prove to increase more nurses in the surgical units. The plan addresses the needs of the nurses and how to best improve their conditions to increase their capability and confidence when facing these challenges that they are trained to handle comfortably. The plan also addresses doctors in the surgical units as well as the nurse educators as they directly influence the output of the nurse in and outside of the surgical unit presently and also in the future of the country.

SWOT Analysis

Strength 

• The problem of limited nurses in surgical units offers a huge window of hope in masterminding a suitable solution to the problem more so because of the huge numbers of graduating nurses every single year offering the required labor force in the surgical units.
• Another notable strength remains the increased number of health facilities with the capabilities of performing surgeries from the federal, state and local level which meets the demand of the increased number of nurse graduates.
• Government intervention also encourages the situation of the nurses more considering the Affordable Care Act (ACA) which allocates a specific amount to facilitate the work of the nurses making their transition from students to professionals swift (Dolan & Dolan Looby, 2017).

Opportunities 

• The opportunities include the high number of facilities to create opportunities for the high graduating numbers.
• Breakthrough in having sufficient nurses for the surgical units at all levels of the healthcare system.

Weaknesses

• Research shows that the nurses remain inadequately trained in surgical fieldwork by the time of their graduation. Limited experience deters them from seeking opportunities to practice and help in the surgical units.

Threat

• The increasing number of patients and limited nurses in the surgical units presents the threat of increased surgical errors which threatens the lives of the patients.

Top Priorities

The primary priorities, in this case, include the matter of nurse students getting inadequate training while in school. Studies have shown that while different levels of nursing offer different specialized training for different specialties, the surgical nurses receive dismal training as the majority of their attention remains with the surgical students more than the nurses. As such, the need to combat this goes without mentioning as its threats to create a field of surgical nurses devoid of confidence in their work which increases the risk of the health of the patients. Further, this overworks the physicians whereby studies have shown this accumulation of fatigue as a risk factor for committing medical fatal medical errors while conducting surgeries. In a study by Educators at a university and a large hospital system formed an innovative partnership to create a pilot course for undergraduate nurse students preparing them for surgical duties in the future. At the end of the pilot course, the results showed that four of the students that graduated in the course went on to secure jobs as surgical nurses within the shortest duration following their graduation (Ball, Doyle & Oocumma, 2015). Other students, seemed to shy off from seeking a job and those that got job reported feeling nervous in the first days as they did not have the skills to work calmly in their new environment.

Another pertinent issue would be the issue of the way nurses have reported unfair conduct from their doctors within the surgical unit. Fresh surgical nurses have reported the doctors being harsh to them despite them not being aware of their work properly (Gocmen Avci, Turker, Ciftci & Topcu, 2014). As such, the preparations should consider adequate exposure for the nurse while encouraging doctors to remain supportive of their staff for successful teamwork.

Concluding, the issue of inadequate nurses in the surgical units possess a great risk to the health of the population and tarnishes the image of the healthcare sector. Nonetheless, the proper implantation of the proposed measures promises a better future for more confident nurses in the surgical units.