Quality Issues In Nursing

Questions Answered: What is the problems with quality care today? Why is quality of care lacking in areas? Quality of care plays an important role in assuring the standards of nursing performance. By providing specific performance requirements, standards of nursing performance can improve and provide quality of nursing care in health care settings (Scope & Standards, pg 33). Quality care is one of the most significant nursing standards of modern time. This particular standard must be implemented by nurse's everyday.

One of the main concerns in nursing practice today, is quality of care in the health care setting (iom.edu). Recent reports from the American Nurses Association (ANA) and the Institute of Medicine's Quality Initiative (IMQI) brought
Thomas, from the local Nursing Home discussed her time of burn-out. She states,One day, I had thirty patients to care for all by myself. I had two nursing aides that did everything except medications. The whole day I passed out dozens of meds. They didn't have anyone for the next shift and my manager asked if I could work some over time. I worked sixteen hours that day. I made three medication errors and two patients had new pressure ulcers, but there was no one else to care for these individuals. The bad thing was, I didn't even care for them, I just handed them their meds. The aides did all of the work because I was so pressured for time. That's the way it is now, more nursing aides and less nurses. No one wants a nurse's job because it is not what it seems (D. Thomas, personal interview, October 31,
It was either fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, or one hour. Sadly, this was no always the best scenario for the patient. Although the patient was getting care, it wasn't the care that they would have liked. One patient said to me, "Do you have to go already?" I was so busy that I could not stay and I knew no one could cover for me, so I left. It saddened me to feel that I hadn't done my job to its full capacity. I had too many patients and too little time. An insurer made my patient visits more of a "hello" and "goodbye."Americans are limited when it comes to healthcare benefits and insurers are escalating insurance premiums (Scope & Standards, pg 18). The estimation of uninsured individuals in the U.S. reached forty-five million in 2002 according to the American Hospital Association. Forty-five million Americans will not even have the opportunity to receive any healthcare, let alone have quality healthcare