Reversing Nurse Staffing Shortages

NHS正面临人员危机。目前的数据显示，NHS有43,619个护士空缺。英格兰的信托基金每年花费14.6亿英镑用于机构和银行护士轮班，以填补永久护理人员的缺口。一些数据显示，信托公司为一名机构工作人员的轮班支出超过2500英镑（沃茨，2022年）。作为加拿大和英国的一名护士，我亲身经历了人员短缺对员工心理健康和患者安全的影响。虽然雇用机构工作人员可以帮助填补轮值表中的漏洞，但过度依赖机构工作人员可能会影响工作人员的士气，以及机构和工作人员护士的心理健康（Manias，2003）。例如，工程处工作人员往往没有接受过设备培训，在新病房工作时“缺乏信心”，经常被长期护理人员视为局外人（Hass，2006年）。从后勤的角度来看，许多机构的护士没有得到适当和及时的轮班通知（Manias，2003）。在我的博士论文中，我将询问是否可以使用反向拍卖和护士推荐系统来解决机构护理的高成本问题，同时提高患者安全性和机构护士满意度。

The NHS is facing a staffing crisis. Current numbers show that there are 43,619 nurse vacancies in the NHS. With trusts in England spending £1.46 billion a year on agency and bank nurse shifts to fill gaps in permanent nursing staff. Some figures showing that trusts are spending greater than £2500 for one agency staff on shift (Waters, 2022). As a nurse in Canada and the UK, I have experienced first-hand the impacts of staffing shortages on staff mental health and patient safety. While hiring of agency staff can help plug the holes in a rota, the overreliance on agency staff can have impacts on staff morale, and the mental health of agency and staff nurses (Manias, 2003). For example, Agency staff are often not trained on the equipment and experience "a lack of confidence" when working in new wards and are often viewed as outsiders by permanent nursing staff (Hass, 2006). And from a logistics perspective, many agency nurses were not notified of shifts in an appropriate and timely fashion (Manias, 2003). For my PhD thesis I will be asking if a reverse auction and nurse recommender system can be used to address the high costs of agency nursing, while improving patient safety and agency nurse satisfaction.