UNIVERSITY OF PERPETUAL HELP SYSTEM-DALTA

Pamplona, Las Piňas City

College of Nursing

AGING NURSES
Submitted by:
Gomez, Rhoanne

Gomez, Warren

Gonzales, Ramil

Gonzales, John Rowland

Gonzaga, Daniel

Gonzaga, Jonathan

Gorgonia, Jaypee

Granada, Ma. Kristina

Granado, cherilyn

Grnados, Bernadette

Gratil, Brena Bernadette

Gregore, Anjinka

Submitted to:
Mrs. Peneda R.N MAN

UNIVERSITY OF PERPETUAL HELP SYSTEM-DALTA

 Pamplona, Las Piňas City
College of Nursing

Table of contents
Content Pages
Front page…………………………………………………….. 1
Introduction …………………………………………………..2-3
Related Literature…………………………………………...…4-7

Solution and Recommendation………………………………..8-9

Conclusion…………………………………………………….10

UNIVERSITY OF PERPETUAL HELP SYSTEM-DALTA

 Pamplona, Las Piňas City
College of Nursing

INTRODUCTION

Every high school senior always has a tough job of choosing which college course to

purse. Most people would opt to study anything about technology and computers

because of its obvious high demand.

However, medical courses like nursing and medicine are still popular. People who

choose to pursue a career in nursing have varying reasons why they choose to go that

route some people have a compassionate and caring nature others opine that the

nursing profession is lucrative because of its pay, while there are still others who

recognize the fact that nurses are in high demand.

One of the main reasons of this shortage in the nursing workface is the fact that in

the US alone, there is an aging population. As a result of this, there is a great need for

skilled nurses to take care of elderly.

Aside from hospitals, registered nurses also play key roles in retirement homes.

The fact that only about 60% of the total nursing workface is employed in hospitals

shows that nurses can assume different roles. If we look at the statistics further, the

remaining nearly in 40% work in the other medical institutions. About 14% work in
community health centers, there 10.5% of the nursing workface working in outpatients

care centers, and still about 5.3% are employed in long term care facilities.

Add to the fact that today’s nursing workface is aging and there are huge numbers of

nurses who are set to retire in 15 years. Studies also shows that the average age for

active nurses right now is 47 compared to just 40 years old back in 1980. Because of an

almost guaranteed employment after college, more and more incoming college students

take up a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing.

In a data released by the bureau of Labor statistics or BLS, in the year 2018.

There will be a need of 580, 000 new or replacement nurses to be able to fulfill the

demand. The increased demand for nurses in just eight years is due to the increasing

roles that are given to registered nurses as well as the aging nurse workface.

The BLS also products that by the year 2018, the nursing field will be the fastest

growing sectors that would definitely result in thousand of new nursing jobs because of

the aging nurses that are planning to retire after 8 to 10 years of work experience.

UNIVERSITY OF PERPETUAL HELP SYSTEM-DALTA

 Pamplona, Las Piňas City

College of Nursing

Related Literature

In the face of an anticipated nursing shortage, healthcare organizations must

evaluate their culture, operations, and compensation system to ensure that these

elements align with organizational efforts to retain nurses who are approaching

retirement age. Management should focus on enhancing elements of job satisfaction

and job embeddedness that will motivate nurses to remain both in the workforce and

with their employer. Although much of this responsibility falls on the nurse manager,

nurse managers are often not provided the necessary support by top management and

are neither recognized nor held accountable for nurse turnover. Other retention

initiatives can include altering working conditions to reduce both physical and mental

stress and addressing issues of employee health and safety. As for compensation,

organizations may be well-served by offering senior nursing staff flexible working hours,

salary structures that reward experience, and benefit programs that hold value for an

aging workforce.

An essential element of an effective nursing retention strategy is a culture that

appreciates the knowledge, experience, and perspective that older nurses can provide
to an organization. Creating this culture may necessitate combating preconceived

notions about older workers so as to both receive the greatest return from its

experienced employees and ensure a work environment that is conducive to effective

patient care and high patient satisfaction.

Concerns that older nurses are, in general, less productive than other nurses are

unfounded. Sterns and Sterns (1995) determined that chronological age is a weak

predictor of capacity for productive performance. Because senior workers have the

physical and mental capabilities to perform all but the most physically demanding tasks

as well as the ability to learn new skills (Bass and Caro 1996), organizations whose

culture, working conditions, and reward systems attract and retain experienced nurses

can expect to be better suited to withstand anticipated nursing shortages.

JOB SATISFACTION AND JOB EMBEDDEDNESS

According to (Jaros 1997) one method for determining the cultural,

environmental, and reward and recognition programs that are most valued by older

nurses is to assess employee job satisfaction. Lambert, Hogan, and Barton (2001)

concluded that positive job satisfaction is twice as predictive of employee turnover as

employment tenure and is four times as predictive as the perception of alternative

employment opportunities, age, gender, and educational level.

Evidence implies that current job satisfaction for nurses has significant room for

improvement, Jaros (1997) discovered that 50 percent of employed nurses have

considered leaving nursing as a profession in the last two years, primarily because of

low satisfaction with their job. Whereas older nurses are more likely to leave the hospital

workforce for other positions, older nurses who do not leave are more satisfied with and

committed to their employer than are younger nurses (McNeese-Smith 2000). Yet, job

satisfaction is not necessarily the most accurate predictor of employee turnover. Other

common predictor variables include organizational commitment, perceived job

alternatives, job-search behavior, and job embeddedness (Holtom and O'Neill 2004). In

comparing these variables, Holtom and O'Neill found job embeddedness to be a more

effective predictor than a combination of perceived desirability of movement measures

(job satisfaction and organizational commitment) and perceived ease of movement

measures (job alternatives and job search). As a result, healthcare organizations would

be best served by focusing their retention strategies on the elements of job

embeddedness.

According to Holtom and O’Neil, they identified the critical aspects of job

embeddedness such as:

1. Fit: the extent to which an employee's job and community are similar to or fit with the

other aspects of the employee's life. Fit is indicative of an employee's perceived comfort

with an organization and his or her work environment.

2. Links: the extent to which employees have links to other people or activities. Links

are formal or informal connections between the employee, institutions, and other …

Stressor, Conflicts, Problems

 Research regarding older nurses has focused on their health, safety, stress level,

preferred setting, schedule, intention to leave, and job satisfaction. One study done in

the southeastern states found that over one third of 308 hospital-employed old RNs

reported job related health problems (Letvak, 2005). Common injuries were needle stick

and back strain. A qualitative study of 11 older nurses found them confident in their

abilities and capable of meeting the demands of hospital nursing (Letvak, 2002). This

small sample reported stressor including inter generational conflict with younger nurses,

less respect from patients and families, and inequity in pay. Santos et al. (2003) found

significantly worse scores for stress and strain due to role overload, role insufficiency,

role ambiguity, role boundary, and interpersonal strain in nurses born between 1946

and 1964 (Baby Boomers).

UNIVERSITY OF PERPETUAL HELP SYSTEM-DALTA

 Pamplona, Las Piňas City

College of Nursing

SOLUTION AND RECOMMENDATION

In every situation and problem, there will always a solution on it.

For this issue of aging nurses that are set to retire in 15 years and will

affect the nursing workforce, the following are the strategies and solutions in

addressing this problem.

1. Delaying retirements by provision of options for reduce working hour, these

include scheduling flexibility both in terms of hours per week and hour per shift,

including shifts as short as 4-6 hours.

2. Focus on healthier working environment for them, since that aging nurses are

most concerned about their physical health, particularly their back, it would be

helpful to install mechanical lifts to help this nurses to lift and move patients.

3. Promote specific incentives programs in which work intensity can be alleviated

such as reducing patient load, with corresponding reduction pay.

In addition to this, we recommend that aging nurses must have a big role in

educating the young nurses since that they are rich respirator of wisdom and knowledge
that they can pass on to young nurses. There should be a pairing of older and younger

nurses in each area that would create a better functioning multigene`1``rational staff.

UNIVERSITY OF PERPETUAL HELP SYSTEM-DALTA

 Pamplona, Las Piňas City
College of Nursing

Conclusion

The ability to delay retirement of a significant number of nurses or creating career

paths that help facilitate a transition to a different work setting could ease the shortage

in the next decade. For example, an analysis on the loss rate of Australian nurses due

to retirement at age 58 versus 65 concluded that later retirement could provide

significant human resources not only in sheer numbers, but also in experience and

expertise (O’Brien-Pallas, Duffield, & Alkanis, 2004). The attitude that older nurse are

expandable and that an ample supply of new graduates will be available to replace

retiring nurses in the next decade has been refuted by a growing chorus of concerned

researchers around the world (Blakeley & Ribeiro, 2008; Camerino et al., 2006).

UNIVERSITY OF PERPETUAL HELP SYSTEM-DALTA

 Pamplona, Las Piňas City
College of Nursing

REFERRENCE
• http://www.nursingadvocancy.org/news/2007/aug/15 boston herald.html

• http://www.medscape.com

• http://www.highbeam.com/doc

• http://findarticles.com

• http://www.icn.ch/matters_aging.htm