Abstract:
the effect of shortage in the healthcare workforce significantly influences healthcare services worldwide, mainly the access to healthcare facilities. Factors such as overloaded work schedules and restricted access to personal protective equipment (PPE) imposed significant stress and led to burnout and a high turnover rate. High staff aging fosters the retirement rate among the healthcare workforce, especially professionals. The coronavirus pandemic accelerated the issues, creating a high demand for health care services and increasing the work pressure on health staff. The systemic literature review analyzes the strategies that the health care managers and decision makers can use to eliminate the severity of the staff shortage. In addition, the article examines the integration between education and training with other strategies for alleviating the issue and increasing staff supply. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, a detailed search transpired using the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) and the academic databases MEDLINE. Data from 25 relevant articles was analyzed to answer the research question. Four common themes emerged from the analysis of workers replacement, education, training, collaboration, and integration that can be used as better strategies to increase the supply of health care workers. The results showed that the healthcare workforce is in increased demand for their services, placing them at risk for emotional stress and depression and lowering the retention rate among health organizations. However, some creative methods were developed by many institutions to turn over the shortage, especially during the exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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