Patient Workplace Nursing Human Resource Issue Essay

Patient Workplace Nursing Human Resource Issue - Essay Example All these issues impact one another and make up a rich dynamic that affects the way nursing care is given at present. They also impact the way planning for future care is done in hospitals and other institutions of care. There is a need to explore the literature to find answers, sort out the issues, and get to a more nuanced and deeper perspective of how such issues affect and feed off one another. Hopefully at the end of the exercise the literature will point the way towards possible solutions, or at least towards new and rich insights that can guide planning on the part of hospitals and other institutions, and the way nurses pursue career tracks in the different related disciplines. At the very least, the review of the literature hopefully brings us up to date with regard to what the state of those issues are, what the terrain looks like so to speak, and what major milestones and watermarks are present that nursing practitioners, health care managers, and all the other stakeholders in the process should be on the watch for, with regard to nursing staffing, turnover, career development, and related issues of vital interest. Moreover, the review of the literature ought to guide creative endeavors aimed at resolving key bottlenecks and main points of dispute and concern. The thinking is that an intelligent look at the literature ought to give practitioners and involved parties the right kinds of perspectives and tools without which creativity in the crafting of solutions to pressing human resource issues cannot be undertaken successfully (Ritchie et al., 2003; Vincent and Beduz, 2010; Doherty et al., n.d.; Sanford, 2010; Jones, 2008; Hunt, 2009). II. Review of the Literature There has been two sides to a debate that constitute the push and pull forces as far as nurse staffing and human resources management is concerned. On the one side are arguments that point to quality of care levels being correlated with the quality and number of nurses allocated for every pa tient in a health care setting. The greater the quality and the greater the number of nurses allocated on a per patient basis. On the other side are arguments that treat the issue of health care provision as a numbers/financials game. To be financially viable, nursing human resources must be treated as a financial variable, as a cost that must be managed. Of course as a cost, hospitals and other health care institutions being for the most part for profit operations, nursing staffing must be managed to optimal levels, rather than to the maximum, because the latter means suboptimal profits. The balancing act is with regard to providing optimum care via staffing of nurses that is also financially viable for the institution concerned (Ritchie et al., 2003; Vincent and Beduz, 2010; Doherty et al., n.d.; Sanford, 2010; Jones, 2008; Hunt, 2009). Yet the literature also states that the problem of staffing is not an easy one to tackle and solve, owing to the fact that there are a host of fac tors that impact hiring and staffing decisions. While it is known that staffing levels correlate positively with quality of care, aside from the financials there is the matter of the lack of qualified nurses to provide quality care. This is a problem of qualification. At any given time, though there are vacancies, not enough qualified nurses are available to man and fill up those vacant nurses' positions. This means that if a hospital, for instance, goes