**** please comments Peers answer add citation and references 🙂 ******

Response one: As a new RN with less than 2.5 years of hospital nursing experience it is hard to believe that there was a time were nursing shortage was not an issue. It is one of the major problems of nursing today. In researching this discussion question, I discussed with a seasoned nurse that has 30 years’ experience in the hospital, wanting to know; has nursing always been like this and what she thought was the contributing factors were. This was a very interesting conversation that if you are a new nurse, I suggest you should seek out someone with experience and talk about this discussion question. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) the nursing shortage is due to multiple factors, from lack of facilities for educational achievement, a large number of retiring nurses with a smaller amount of graduating nurses to take their place, and demographical needs changing over time (larger amounts of aging population needing care) (AACN, 2019). Due to the shortage that exist with very little movement towards making it better we are seeing a larger number of nurses leaving the industry, from being over stressed, poor work environments, not being able to provide adequate care to patients. This only adds to the nursing shortage even more. My seasoned nurse stated that she remembers when this started to become a problem one of the first fixes was to go to 12 hours shifts, but she said this did little do decrease the actual nursing shortage. I’m based in Texas and have seen many different attempts by the organization to put a bandage on the nursing shortage, hoping to increase the retention of nurses: one of these is what is called Team Nursing. One RN has 10 patients and 2-4 assistants (these assistants can vary from CNA, LVN, EMT, Paramedics). This is supposed to take the pressure of the RN for jobs that can be done by a lower licensed individual, and free them up for the care that needs an RN. Another organizational measure that has been seen is mandatory overtime, this has made many nurses unhappy because overtime should be a choice. This is just patching to a broken system, without adequate changes to legislation focusing on things such as patient ratio and work environment the gap will just continue to grow creating a larger nursing shortage across America.

One of the ways that the nursing profession is trying to fix the nursing shortage is making sure all nursing school slots are filled 100 percent, this is done through a website called Nursing CAS. This site allows nursing school applicates to use one application to apply to many different nursing programs, they have 275 schools that have accepted this process (Nursingcas, n.d.).

Texas is one of the regions that will continue to have the largest growing nursing shortages: LVN, RN, ANP (TCNWS, 2019). Texas launched what is called 60x30TX, this is a plan to bridge the gap of the population without post grade school education. This initiative not only looks at legislations help to reconstruct the educational structure. The idea behind the changes being made is to have 60% of Texas to have certifications or degrees by 2030. Focusing on all levels of education from k-12 and up, helping with transferring into college and looking at dual credit options (60x30tx.com, n.d.).

American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2019). Nursing-Shortage. Retrieved from: https://www.aacnnursing.org/News-Information/Fact-Sheets/Nursing-Shortage

Texas Center for Nursing Workforce Studies. (2019). Nurse Supply and Demand Projections, 2015-2030. Retrieved from: https://www.dshs.texas.gov/chs/cnws/Nursing-Workforce-Reports/

60x30tx.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from: http://www.60x30tx.com/

Nursingcas. (n.d.) Retrieved from: https://www.nursingcas.org/