Long-Term Care is in a Crisis
Nurses and nursing assistants struggle to provide quality care to their patients due to low staffing levels and large wage differences across facilities and state lines, leading to many underpaid and overworked caregivers. Those who were drawn to be a caregiver out of the compassion in their hearts are driven out of the industry due to the more-than-unfavorable working conditions that has repercussions on their physical and mental health, divorcing them from their passion to give care. These compassionate people are now leaving the profession altogether at a time when we need them most. While nursing facilities face a plethora of issues that affect their ability to provide quality care in their facilities, the toll of these problems often falls on nurses and nursing assistants.
During the height of COVID-19, we saw how important our nurses and nursing assistants are to our communities and families. However, we also saw the problematic inefficiencies of the healthcare industry that contribute to short staffing, overworked nurses, and systemic burnout across the broader nursing industry. Throughout the pandemic, nurses all across the country left the field due to these inefficiencies.
Nurses enter the caregiving profession because they are drawn to help people and feel rewarded when they can change people’s lives – it’s their calling. But spending years taking understaffed shifts, working overtime unpaid because nobody can fill that last-minute shift, and not seeing their careers or earning potential expand, often without appreciation, takes a heavy toll.
These industry-wide factors have far-reaching repercussions for the healthcare industry. Caregivers who were once enthusiastic about working have been burned out by long hours, inflexible schedules, and low pay rates – finding less enthusiasm to give care, a decreased sense of purpose, finding themselves isolated and stuck in their nursing job. These factors caused nurses to leave their profession altogether, studies say. But the worst part is that even as we re-emerge from COVID-19, nurses aren’t returning to their nursing jobs as expected.
COVID-19 was not the sole problem, it was the last straw.
Without a solution to improve the work-lives of caregivers, short staffing will plague the industry, compounding the problem of burned out nurses, leaving the healthcare industry starving for caregivers.
Addressing the Stresses of Long-Term Care on Nursing Professionals
Understanding the factors that cause nurses to leave the caregiving profession – a profession where unfavorable working conditions have increasingly alienated nurses from their passion to provide care can address the inefficiencies that cause these caregivers to leave when they are desperately needed.
With a lack of solutions that effectively address the burden on nursing professionals, the healthcare industry is trending in a catastrophic direction. By empowering nursing professionals to transform the way they work – providing them the ability to create their own schedules, offering competitive pay rates, quality employee benefits, and opportunities for career growth – nursing professionals can work a nursing job they enjoy.
Nursing professionals often find themselves conflicted about their nursing jobs: Do what you love and follow your passion to be a caregiver, but sacrifice your work/life balance, work overtime (often unpaid), and lock yourself to a rigid schedule with pay that might be lower than average in your area.
With new staffing solutions popping up that actually listen to caregivers, nursing professionals have new and improved ways to do what they love. Providing a nursing experience that caregivers deserve rekindles that spark for caregiving that brings nurses back to facilities, puts an end to the short staffing trend, and provides the quality of life that our caregivers deserve.
As an IntelyPro, nursing professionals find schedule flexibility, allowing them the freedom in their life that they deserve while pursuing their passion to provide care. IntelyPros choose where they work, allowing them to switch facilities easily to gain new experiences, meet new people, and find the facility that’s the perfect fit for them. Plus, IntelyPros enjoy the competitive pay rates, quality employee benefits, and job security, that are needed to provide a desirable working condition for nurses.
“Once I switched to IntelyCare, it gave me my love for nursing back,” says IntelyPro and RN, Dana Walker.