Registered Nurse with extensive experience in the healthcare field. Goals direct. Exceptional leadership ability and good professional judgment. Strong patient advocacy.…
Improving the quality of care and patient safety is the top priority of every hospital.…
When nurses are forced to work with high nurse to patient ratios, patients can develop a variety of infections, get injured, and can lead to death. Often at times patients are discharged home too soon without adequate education about how to manage their illness or injury (Raquel & Sean, 2011). Because of patients being discharged to soon, this causes them to return back to the hospital often sicker than they were before. Increase in rate of admissions, transfers, and discharges on hospital unit’s raises nurses’ workload. When nurses have fewer patients, they are able to provide high quality care (Raquel & Sean, 2011). A quantitative research was done based on knowledge of unit’s attribute and shift by shift nurse staffing levels. The researchers inspected 43 units of medical and surgical patient’s mortality in an infamous magnet hospital here in United States. The units and shifts staffing data from 2003 to 2006 were obtained and consolidated with patient data resulting in 3.2 million unit shifts for 197961 patients. The outcome of two staffing variables were scrutinize using a shift unit level: understaffing actual registered nurses staffing eight hours or more below target staffing levels generated by a patient classification system and high turnover which means unit admissions, transfers and discharges exceeds mean day shift by one standard deviation. Patient survival rate was analyzed using Cox proportional hazard regression models with adjustment for clients, unit and shifts risk covariates was practiced. The risk adjust mortality was evaluated to staffing and turnover within the first 5 to 30 days after admission and during previous shifts. The result was dangerous ratios (Raquel & Sean, 2011).…
The medical-surgical unit of ABC hospital is a 52 bed unit divided into three nursing stations. The unit provides care for medical/surgical adult and geriatric patients on various stages of recuperation from diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical interventions. Staffing levels are based on accurate calculation of the volume of patients occupying a bed. Lately the hospital has been experiencing a shortage in staffing of all positions; registered nurses, license practical nurses, certified nursing assistants, technical staff and orderlies. The problem has escalated to a critical level in recent…
Nurses are turning increasingly to staffing agencies to find employment. Many hospitals and other healthcare facilities go through cycles of hiring personnel and then laying them off when budget cuts come down at the end of the fiscal year. This leaves many nurses unemployed while there is an increasing need for their talent.…
The process of going to college, studying to become a nurse, and ultimately finding a position in our ever growing, competitive work field is quite the challenge. Now that the beginning stages of our career have been completed and we have secured our positions as an ICU nurse, we face a different dilemma daily within the workplace; understaffing. We have lost three nurses and currently, those positions will not be re-filled, leaving the workload to fall onto our shoulders to bare. Serious consideration should be given to replacing these three positions within the ICU. By having the other nurses bare the extra burden of extra hours, patients will ultimately not receive the best care possible, your remaining…
* Recently, I read the article, "Why Emotions Matter: Age, Agitation, and Burnout Among Registered Nurses"...…
Coffman, J. M., Seago, J. A., & Spetz, J. (2002). Minimum nurse-to-patient ratios in acute care hospitals in California. Health Affairs, 21(5), 53-64. Retrieved from http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/21/5/53.full.html…
There is a shortage of nurses in this country in general and at my job in particular. “The causes of nursing shortages worldwide are attributed primarily to aging populations, increasing patient acuity, an explosion of knowledge and technology, and the ever-expanding role of nurses” (Wolff, Pesut, & Regan, 2010). This shortage affects our community but most important, it affects those who are most vulnerable, the patients who trust us to care for them. Nurses working long hours for more than three days become fatigued, frustrated, and feel unappreciated which leads to job dissatisfaction and the risk of…
The nursing shortage is a growing concern for the nation. The aging population is causing more demand for qualified healthcare professionals. At the same time, healthcare professionals are retiring faster than they can be replaced. This shortage of nursing professionals is causing more overtime work, which creates more nursing errors. Scholarships and grants are being awarded to students to try and generate more nursing professionals. Many facilities are offering tuition reimbursement incentives to help lure nursing professionals. Many facilities are also offering sign-on bonuses. These incentives show how serious the increasing need for qualified nursing professionals is becoming.…
According to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), the growing shortage of nurses in America 's hospitals is putting patient lives in danger and requires immediate attention. "The current nursing shortage threatens to heavily impact our citizens ' health and our nations ' security preparedness". (Person, 2003) The nursing shortage that is sweeping across the United States has been upgraded from a health crisis to a national security concern. A recent study in Pennsylvania found that surgical patients in hospitals with high patient-to-nurse ratios experience higher rates of mortality and deaths following complications. Nurses working in these establishments tend to experience…
There is a diverse range of aspects related to nursing staffing in health care organizations. Staffing levels in hospitals are likely to have a bearing on the assurance in the delivery of safe and reliable care. However, nursing staffing challenges have remained perennial prompting prolonged attention on the allocation of nurse staffing resources to facilitate patient safety (Weston et al., 2012). Nevertheless, focus on staffing levels has particularly increased with the prevailing shortage of nurses (Rochefort, et al., 2015). Furthermore, there have been changes in the manner nursing is approached. Traditionally, it would be assumed that well-trained practitioners were not prone to errors. Such was consistent with the traditional tendency…
Clarke, S. (2003). Patient safety series, part 2 of 2: Balancing staffing and safety. Nursing…
The familiar phrase of overworked and under appreciated has rang through the nursing field. As health care reform and insurances make critical changes, nurses are forced to keep up. Nursing managers are in a bind to meet the new budget cuts and criteria set forth by these changes, which includes higher patient to nurse ratios. Low staffing can lead to nurse burnout, job dissatisfaction and poor staff retention (International Journal of Nursing Practice, 2014). This article will outline some issues at hand with unsafe staffing ratios and the legislative actions regarding this matter.…
Imagine being admitted into the hospital with a serious illness and knowing that you may not get the proper care that you need and desire because the nursing staff is short. That could be very dangerous depending on what’s going on with your health. Nurses have always been a huge part of the medical field because of the diversity of the occupation. Patients rely on the care of nurses while healing/recovering and when that care can’t be given, there is a big problem. The shortage of nurses in the twenty-first century will greatly impact the well being and outcome of patients.…