There are few signs of governmental willingness to commit the resources necessary to provide the facilities and staff required by the increasing demands placed on nursing education. Therefore, nursing educators must attempt to develop innovative teaching approaches that will lead to an increased output of professional nurses, while continuing to operate with a stable resources base, and without permitting nursing education standards to deteriorate.
The nursing shortage also is aggravated by a significant decline in the numbers of new professional nurses being provided by schools of nursing. The decline in the output of schools of nursing is the result, in part, of increasing attrition rates among enrolled students (Payne, 1997). The pool of registered nurses in the United States is deteriorating in the contexts of both quantity and quality, as quality is a function of educational diversity (Neighbors & Eldred, 1993).
Increasing Complexity of Nursing Practice
As the profession of nursing becomes increasingly complex, nurses assume greater responsibilities in the areas of clinical practice, education, and the advance of nursing science (Oermann, 1994). A changing face of the broader society drives change in nursing. In turn, the changes in both society and the nursing profession demand innovation in nursing education. In the future, administrators of nursing departments will be required to be more creative in the areas of staff development and motivation, as more complex tasks become a part of increasing workloads in the face of a shortage of professional nursing (Barhyte & Redman, 1993).
The nursing administrator of the future must be prepared to deal with such problems as improved work design, staff development, and exercising professional autonomy while, at the same time, assuming greater responsibilities for the conduct of research to advance the profession. Staff development for nursing departments in the future...