Nursing is challenging, nobody has ever lied to anybody about that one. Long hours, a lot of responsibility, and a healthcare working environment that, it must be said, just seems to get tougher and tougher as the current talent dearth plighting the U.S. healthcare jobs market means there are less and less healthcare institutions benefitting from the top talent. Most of the modern challenges faced by nurses today are precisely of this order; mainly the same challenges as always but getting more and more severe.
However, there are some modern challenges facing the nurses today that the nurses of yesterday simply did not have to contend with. Health Jobs, a healthcare jobs recruitment service, say that learning about these should be – if it is not already – an essential part of any nurse’s training.
Many of these challenges are, of course, related to Covid-19. As most of the pandemic’s challenges slip further into the past for most people, it should be remembered that this is not the case for healthcare workers, and especially not for nurses. Nurses still need to deal with the effects of an ongoing pandemic, as well as the massive vaccination effort that can be expected to continue for some time yet.
New Innovations Out Of Catastrophe
Cometh the hour, cometh the nurse – because with great challenges comes a very strong imperative to find new solutions to new problems, to improve healthcare infrastructure, and truly optimize the quality of care and efficiency which nurses give wherever they work.
Consider telehealth. This new system of caring for patients remotely and thereby reducing stress on a hospitals and other healthcare institutions has been made possible by advancements in communication technology. However, it has been made necessary by the many new challenges nurses have faced such as the pandemic and the extra stress that has been placed on hospitals by the talent shortage.
New Challenges For Nurses
If you are a registered nurse then who is currently working in the healthcare system, you will be more than aware of the challenges those in your profession face. If you are a recent graduate or fairly new on the job, then this is what you have to prepare for.
New Practice Paradigms
When it comes to the daily tasks of the nurses and the workflow which they follow from when they clock in to when they clock off, there is no denying that this has been in flux in recent years – usually chaotically so. For example, resources nurses previously took for granted have become scarcer, largely because of the pandemic. The talent shortage too has meant that nurses have had to take on more tasks over the course of a shift than ever before, sometimes those of other nurses, sometimes those of other healthcare professionals.
Burnout
Burnout isn’t new but, sadly, it has become far more common. This is the effect of increased job stress and the aforementioned shifting practice paradigms. Thankfully, the best healthcare institutions are already putting practices in place, such as improved counselling and the integration of wellness principles into the workplace, in order to combat this disastrous condition.
Information Fatigue
This one is closely related to the pandemic. Information fatigue refers to the constant updating of practices and treatments to deal with a pandemic that we are all still in the process of learning about. When things move so fast, the information just gets too much, and mistakes are made.
This is what it means to be a nurse in the modern day. Or, at least, this is what it means now. Who knows what new challenges await in the future?
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