Abstract The effects of having a deficient nursing staff are explored in this paper. By reducing the number of nurses in a healthcare facility the quality of care is no longer at its peak. If healthcare facilities were to hire an adequate number of nurses the quality of care would return to its peak. However, as the number of nurses continues to deteriorate current health care team nurses are forced to work with a soaring nurse-to-patient ratio. As the quality of care diminishes hospital stay is extended, which increases the cost of care for the hospital and patient. The severity of the issues that an inadequate nursing staff have are substantial and need to be resolved. This paper examines the abounding effects associated with inadequate …show more content…
As stated before they are the backbone of the healthcare team. Healthcare facilities must learn the value of nurses and what they bring to the table. They are the patient's advocate. Nurses have the ability to express the patients’ needs or desires to the interdisciplinary team. With the critical thinking and exquisite communication skills, a nurse is a vital component when it comes to patient care. Hospitals must understand recognize that without a sufficient number of nurses the quality of care declines substantially. By adopting this legislation, the states there will be more hospitals with a higher quality of care performance. The job of a nurse goes beyond just performing a medial task. A nurse must be able to connect with the patient based on their needs. A nurse has the to the ability to strategize and design a care plan that fit the patients and will reach every one of their needs. A nurse’s role is a lot more that than just administering medication, it goes beyond that and hospitals need to consider the effect it will have if they cut back on their nursing …show more content…
Especially the patient. When cutting back on staff nurses it is imperative that the consequences are fully understood. In the end, a patient’s life is on the line. As discussed, a nurse’s role goes beyond the medical aspect, developing a relationship with the patient is vital when delivering care. A nurse-patient relationship cannot be provided when there are a bulk workload and long hours with no break period. Having a nurse staff with an adequate number of nurses is imperative to guarantees that all patients needs are met. To ensure that there are minimal errors to no errors made when delivering care, a nursing staff must have a sufficient number of nurses. Additionally, to make sure a hospital's fines are limited pertaining to patient care, an adequate number of nurses. Nurses are a key component in healthcare, however, their duties as nurses cannot be
This brings on a great deal of problems and still shows our shortage of nurses is not going to get better anytime soon. With this shortage of nurses, it brings on the issues of fatigue and injury. Fatigue and injury can make nurses more prone to making errors during the work day, which in the long run is not a good environment for patients to be in. Increasing the nurse-to-patient ratios can help with increasing a nurse’s job satisfaction. In my opinion, if nurses are happy, their patients will be happy too. With their greater job satisfaction, it brings along the increase in call bell efficiency, which then brings along greater patient satisfaction.
The problem, as defined for my argument research paper, is that to cut costs, hospitals have been steadily increasing the number of patients nurses must care for. In many areas it's not uncommon for one nurse to have to assess, give medications to, and manage the care of as many as 12 patients. This puts tremendous strain on nurses. Many of the studies I have seen in my research indicate that a high ration of patients to nurses increases the rate of death or other poor outcomes for patients. It also leads to increased nurse burnout and higher turnover, though at this point I believe my paper will focus on patient outcomes.
Health care reform has been a major issue over the past decade. The Nursing industry has in particular experienced a period of unpredictable change. On Dec 24, 2009, a landmark measure was passed in the senate by a vote of 60 to 39. This decision to pass the health care reform will change America forever. Nurses will constitute the largest single group of health care professionals. They will have a huge impact on quality and effectiveness in health care. The nursing industry will help hold this new program together by acting as the glue (The nursing industry will be the glue holding the new health care in tact.) It is estimated that by 2015 the number of nurses will need to increase to over 4 million. Nurses are the backbone of the health care industry thus creating better polices for this profession will help ease the workload and high demand. A nurse’s main concern is always to insure quality care and the safety of their patients. Under the new health care reform several new measures have been set into place to ease the transition and improve the quality of care for all patients. One program is designed to fund scholarships and loan programs to offset the high costs of education. Nursing shortages and the high turnover has become a serious epidemic. Health care reform is supposed going to solve many of these problems.
Nurses have a considerable amount of responsibility in any facility. They are responsible for administering medicines and treatments to there patient’s. While caring for there patients, nurses will make observations on patient’s health and then record there findings. As well as consulting with doctors and other healthcare professionals to plan proper individual patient care. They teach their patients how to manage their illnesses and explain to both the patient and the patients family how to continue treatment when returning home (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014-15). They also record p...
Needleman, J., Buerhaus, P., Pankratz, S., Leibson, C. L., Stevens, S. R., & Harris, M. (2011). Nurse staffing and inpatient hospital mortality. England Journal of Medicine, Retrieved from http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsa1001025
Licensed practical nurses (LPN 's) fill an important role in modern health care practices. Their primary job duty is to provide routine care, observe patients’ health, assist doctors and registered nurses, and communicate instructions to patients regarding medication, home-based care, and preventative lifestyle changes (Hill). A Licensed Practical Nurse has various of roles that they have to manage on a day to day basis, such as being an advocate for their patients, an educator, being a counselor, a consultant, researcher, collaborator, and even a manager depending on what kind of work exactly that you do and where. It is the nursing process and critical thinking that separate the LPN from the unlicensed assistive personnel. Judgments are based
In most aspects of life the saying “less is always more” may ring true; however when it comes to providing quality care to patients, less only creates problems which can lead to a decrease in patient’s quality of life as well as nurse’s satisfaction with their jobs. The massive shortage of nurses throughout the United States has gotten attention from some of the most prestigious schools, news media and political leaders. Nurses are being burnt out from their jobs, they are being overworked and overlooked. New nurses are not being properly trained, and old nurses are on their way to retirement. All the while the rate of patient admissions is on the rise. Nurses are reporting lower satisfaction in their job positions and hospital retention rates are at an all-time low, conversely this is affecting all patients’ quality of care. As stated in the article Addressing The Nurse Shortage To Improve The Quality Of Patient Care “According to an Institute of Medicine report, Nurses are the largest group of health care professionals providing direct patient care in hospitals, and the quality of care for hospital patients is strongly linked to the performance of nursing staff”.
When I am older I would love to be a Nurse Practitioner, I enjoy helping people when they are sick and taking care of them. Another reason I want to be a Nurse Practitioner is because my sister is also a Nurse Practitioner.
Since the 1990’s, the interest in nursing and the profession as a whole has decreased dramatically and is still expected to do so over the next 10-15 years according to some researchers. With this nursing shortage, many factors are affected. Organizations have to face challenges of low staffing, higher costs for resources, recruiting and reserving of registered nurses, among liability issues as well. Some of the main issues arising from this nurse shortage are the impact of quality and continuity of care, organizational costs, the effect it has on nursing staff, and etc. However, this not only affects an organization and community, but affects the nurses the same. Nurses are becoming overwhelmed and are questioning the quality of care that each patient deserves. This shortage is not an issue that is to be taken lightly. The repercussions that are faced by both nurses and the organization are critical. Therefore, state funding should be implemented to private hospitals in order to resolve the shortage of nurses. State funds will therefore, relieve the overwhelming burdens on the staff, provide a safe and stress free environment for the patient, and allow appropriate funds needed to keep the facility and organization operational.
In being a nurse for just under two years I have come across many different types of conflicts between nurses, physicians, and/or administration. The better question is; what type of conflict is worth fighting for along with a solution. For my very first nursing job I worked on a Medical-Surgical floor in a popular city hospital. On our east side we had 12 rooms (36beds) and on our west side we had 8 private beds that were reserved for surgical hips, knee’s and orthopedic patients. On the east side we had type and true “medical-surgical” patients including, abdominal pain, falls, confusion, ICU transfers, and most of all post surgical patients. Our floor was always and constantly filling up and we were never without a bed. Overtime, the physicians and nurses started to notice more and more isolation patient coming onto our unit. This started to bother the physicians and the nursing staff because of the overwhelming amount of insolation patients. We all could no understand how we would have so many isolation patients on a floor where over half of our patients were fresh surgicals. We brought this concern to management and it did not go anywhere. We were told that we do not discriminate against any patient so in denying a patient who was on isolation would not be ethically. We were very confused because how was it ethically to put fresh surgical patients at risk for infections such a C-diff or MRSA? I personally do not believe management and administration was expecting us to question this new trend we were seeing. On most nights, we had 2 or
Poor staffing stresses every nurse and makes them despite what they once loved to do. Nurses are overworked and because of that they may not provide adequate patient care.
The purpose of this paper is to address the issue of nursing staffing ratios in the healthcare industry. This has always been a primary issue, and it continues to grow as the population rate increases throughout the years. According to Shakelle (2013), in an early study of 232,432 surgical discharges from several Pennsylvania hospitals, 4,535 patients (2%) died within 30 days of hospitalization. Shakelle (2014) also noted that during the study, there was a difference between 4:1 and 8:1 patient to nurse ratios which translates to approximately 1000 deaths for a group of that size. This issue can be significantly affected in a positive manner by increasing the nurse to patient ratio, which would result in more nurses to spread the work load of the nurses more evenly to provide better coverage and in turn result in better care of patients and a decrease in the mortality rates.
These articles have many similarities when discussing the issue of staffing shortages. For patients, their loved ones and the general population, they don’t understand the ramifications and strain that staffing shortages have on nurses. People expect and deserve complete, competent and safe care when they are patients. These articles bring to light all the struggles that nurses have to deal with. Nurses are fearful that they will make mistakes, will harm patients, and will harm themselves. (Bae, 2012; Erlen, 2001; Martin, 2015) Overtime can be overwhelming and exhausting, which can lead to errors being made. (Bae, 2012; Erlen, 2001) These articles perceive that it may be beneficial for nurses, patients, and healthcare facilities to decrease the nurse-to-patient ratio, however, this option is not always
The following essay is a reflective paper on an event that I encountered as a student nurse during my first clinical placement in my first year of study. The event took place in a long term facility. This reflection is about the patient whom I will call Mrs. D. to protect her confidentiality. Throughout this essay I will be using LEARN model of reflection. I have decided to reflect on the event described in this essay since I believe that it highlights the need for nurses to have effective vital signs ‘assessment skills especially when treating older patients with complex medical diagnoses.
Factors such as, heavy workloads, stress, job dissatisfaction, frequent medical errors, and intention of leaving the job are all common for nurses to experience, especially during the nursing shortage crisis. Not only do the nurses suffer during a shortage, but the patients ' health outcomes suffer even more. For instance, there are higher rates of infectious diseases and adverse patient outcomes, such as urinary tract infections (UTIs), upper gastrointestinal bleeding, shock, pneumonia, prolonged hospital stays, failure to rescue, and mortality. As a result, this leads to higher re-admission rates for patients. Furthermore, high patient-to-nurse ratios cause heavy workloads due to an inadequate supply of nurses, an increased demand for nurses, a reduction in staffing and an increase in overtime, and a shortened length of stay for patients. Without the heavy workloads that nurses have to endure on a daily basis, there would more time for nurses to communicate more effectively with physicians, insurance companies, and patients and their families. Those heavy workloads are the result of hospitals reducing the nursing staff and implementing mandatory overtime policies just to meet unexpectedly high demands. Unfortunately, the nursing shortage has affected nurses ' mental and physical health. For example, the most common health concerns for nurses include cardiovascular health, occupational injuries and illnesses, and emotional and physical exhaustion. Therefore, safe-staffing ratios/levels have to become the main