Staffing Issues with Nurses

Nurse staffing refers to the ratio of nurses to patients in a particular unit. The current global nursing shortage is simply wide spread and dangerous lace of skilled nurses who are needed to care for individual patients and the population as a while. A study on the nursing shortage by Linda Aiken of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, fund that an estimated 20,000 people die each year, because they have checked into a hospital with overworked nurses. (The American Nurses Association, Inc., 2010). The study also found that Americans scheduled for routine surgeries run a 31 percent greater risk of dying if they are admitted to a hospital with a severe shortage of nurses. That’s approximately one-fifth of the up to 98,000 deaths that occur lack year as a result of medical errors. Nurse’s care for an n average of four patients at time, with the risk of death increasing by 7 percent for each additional patient cared for over the baseline number. A poll was conducted and it was revealed that more than half of Americans believe the quality of health care is affected, “a great deal” by a shortage of nurses. Nursing is a distinct scientific field and profession whose skilled practitioners save lives and improve patient outcomes every day in a wide variety of settings. In the Center for Nursing Advocacy view, the vast gap between what skilled nurses really do and what the public thinks they do is a fundamental factor underlying most of the more immediate apparent causes of the shortage. (Fagin, Emerita, Maraldo, Mason, May, 2010) These causes include nurse short staffing, poor work conditions, inadequate resources for nursing research and education, the aging nursing workforce, expanded career options for women, nursing predominantly for women, the complexity of healthcare technology and aging population. Other studies have shown that an inadequate quantity of skilled nurses in clinical settings has a significant negative impact on patient outcomes. It

References: “Nurse Staffing Issues”, Eimen Ung, eHow Contributor, August 24, 2010. “Effects of the Nursing Shortage”, The American Nurses Association, (ANA, 2010. “Hospital Nurse Staffing and Quality of Care – AHRQ – Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Research in Action, Issue 14, Feb., 2010. LESIA JOHNSON September 29, 2010