Xtreme nursing and the nursing shortage

The stark realities of today's nursing shortage have cast a shadow of concern on our profession's ability to provide quality nursing care for patients in the future. Despite extensive local and federal efforts to increase the supply of nurses, improve working conditions for nurses, and facilitate nurse retention, forecasts suggest that we are entering a period of Xtreme nursing, a state of serious imbalance between the demand for and the supply of nurses. This article reviews the nursing shortage and explores scenario planning as a useful process which can offer the nursing profession and the American health care industry a means for identifying new, bold, and more realistic approaches for delivering patient care in the future.