Delivery of healthcare in the usa and the impact on licensed practical/ vocational nursing

Delivery of healthcare in the USA and the impact on licensed practical/ vocational nursing

Delivery of healthcare in the USA and the impact on licensed practical/ vocational nursing Affiliation: Course Title:
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1. Summary
This article discusses how the global recession experienced in the United States despite its leading to the loss of many jobs for other individuals in other sectors brought about a dramatic increase in the health sector. This was specifically experienced with an increase of over 243, 000 Registered Nurses which is the largest increase to have ever been experienced in this health sector (Douglas, David and Peter, 2012).
This increase in the number of Registered Nurses within the hospitals according to the article is attributed to a number of factors. One of these factors is the unabated demand for health care despite the economy being on the downward trend. People still become sick and need constant medical care. The other factor is the fact that with the recession, there comes more demand for more family income and since most of the Registered Nurses are married women who need to supplement their family income, most of them had no alternative but to go back and rejoin the workforce for the economic security of their households.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that the rate of unemployment may not return until year 2017. This therefore is interpreted in the article to mean that over these years and as unemployment rate improves, many of these Registered Nurses who have gone back to work will leave the workforce once again due to the improvement in the economy. The number of those who will leave is however not known. The employers are therefore warned not to take this increase in the number of nurses as an end to the nursing shortage since it may recur once the economy improves and they should therefore still have measures to address this reemergence and post-recession shortage.
2. Impact within the discipline of practical nursing.
Practical nurses provide nursing and care giving services in hospitals and other health care facilities under the supervision of Registered Nurses. They also come in handy to curb nurse shortage within the country which has over the years become rampant. With these two important roles in mind, practical nurses therefore have a very big role to play in the delivery of health care of United States.
Based on the article above, an increase in registered nurses as a result of recession spells doomsday to the practical nurses (Douglas, David and Peter, 2012). One of the major reasons for this is the fact that the assistance of practical nurses to the registered nurses who are usually few will no longer be required since the registered nurses will be many to handle the patients in the hospitals. With an increase in the registered nurses in hospitals, the hospital staff will be full and therefore it is only reasonable for the hospital management to reduce the excess workforce and maintain order by removing the least qualified people who are practical nurses (when compared with the qualifications of the registered nurses or doctors).
This problem and set back to the practical nurses will however be short-lived once the economy starts to improve and majority of the registered nurses stop working. This is according to the projections mentioned in the article above. As a result of the projections and warning to the employers, majority of the practical nurses despite being let go may be occasionally required to work in the hospitals for maintenance of the cordial relationship with the hospitals as their services will once again be needed once the registered nurses leave their jobs with the improvement of the economy.
References
Douglas, O. S., David, I. A. and Peter, I. B. (April, 2012). “ Registered Nurse Labor Supply and the Recession — Are We in a Bubble?” The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 366, pp. 1463-1465.