ArticleNursing workforce

Evaluates the cost of the health care workforce.

The last instruction changes everything: this gets published on a public platform, so it has to survive being read by practitioners rather than by a marker, while still carrying three reputable citations.

Editorial process

Last reviewed · August 22, 2026

Written by

Maren Caldwell

MSN, RN, CNE

Medical-surgical nursing, pharmacology and NCLEX preparation

Reviewed by

Dr. Tessa Redmond

DNP, RN, CNE

Evidence-based practice and clinical education

On this page

Interpret the task
Assignment instructions
Deliverables
Proposed outline
Research plan
Reference shortlist
Final review

It gets published, which changes how it has to read

The publication requirement is the instruction that shapes everything else. Something written to be read by practitioners on a professional platform has to be specific quickly, has to survive a reader who works in the setting you are describing, and cannot rely on an academic register to carry it. That is a higher bar than a coursework essay and it is worth treating as one. Start by narrowing, since the brief says a specific service, facility or occupation: labor costs in perioperative services, in a rural critical access hospital, in behavioural health technicians or in home health aides are all arguable topics, while labor costs in health care is not. The narrower the setting, the more the numbers you cite actually apply to it, which is what a practitioner reading on a professional platform checks first, before deciding whether the rest is worth their time.

For the three drivers, choose ones that differ in kind rather than three versions of shortage. Supply is one, and it decomposes into pipeline capacity, faculty shortage limiting nursing school admissions, and geographic maldistribution. Turnover is a second and a distinct one, because replacing a nurse costs a substantial multiple of a salary once vacancy coverage, orientation and lost productivity are counted, and first-year turnover is where most of that sits. Skill mix and scope are a third, since who is permitted to do what determines the cost of the hour. Benefit design, premium pay and agency reliance each work too. Then evaluate the current remedies honestly, because several are contested: residency programmes have reasonable evidence behind them, international recruitment shifts a shortage rather than solving it, and technology substitution has a poor record where it removes the person who was catching errors. grounded in something dated, such as a demographic projection or a scheduled policy change rather than general expectation.

Likely learning objectives

Write for a professional rather than an academic audience.
Narrow a broad cost topic to a specific service or occupation.
Choose cost drivers that differ in kind.
Evaluate remedies including the contested ones.

Assignment instructions

Read the full question

Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.

Identify three key drivers of labor costs within a specific health care service, facility, or other health sector-related occupation (e.g., labor supply, productivity improvement, technology, or personnel benefit design) Evaluate current industry solutions or remediation activities to address the identified labor costs Predict future changes (e.g., policy, funding, or public support) that might exacerbate or accelerate the solutions Publish the article on your own social media account (e.g., LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.), or post it on a health care message board of your choice. Include a citation of the article in your assignment. Cite at least 3 reputable references to support your assignment (e.g., trade or industry publications, government or agency websites, scholarly works, or other sources of similar quality). You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes. Evaluates the cost of the health care workforce. Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages. Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor. The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

Course-wide instructions that accompany this question

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS Discussion Questions (DQ) Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words. Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source. One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words. I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses. Weekly Participation Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately. In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies. Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work). Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week. APA Format and Writing Quality Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required). Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation. I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition. Use of Direct Quotes I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly. As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content. It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source. LopesWrite Policy For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me. Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes. Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own? Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score. Late Policy The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies. Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances. If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect. I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension. As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading. Communication Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class. Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours. Evaluates the cost of the health care workforce.

Turn the brief into deliverables

01A specific service, facility or occupation.
02Three labor cost drivers that differ in kind.
03Current industry solutions, evaluated rather than listed.
04A prediction grounded in dated evidence.
05The article published on a platform, with the citation included.
06At least three reputable references.