Research Proposal

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Recommended: Why nursing advocacy is important

Overview
Nurses know that there is a correlation between maintaining adequate staffing levels and safe patient outcomes. Nurse to patient ratios is a very complicated issue in the health care industry. Nursing shortages, higher patient acuities, shorter hospital stays, and the cost of health care has presented a challenge to this staffing issue. An inadequate staff ratio puts patients at an increased risk of adverse outcomes such as medical or medication errors, increased hospital acquired infections, and increased mortality rates ("Nurse," n.d.). The complications and adverse outcomes associated with the inadequate staffing levels come at a cost, which is an even larger financial burden on the health care industry related to the cost of treating infections or law suits from wrongful death situations.
A nurse's code of ethics calls for the principle of beneficence, which is defined as preventing harm and promoting good (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2007). Above all, nurses are patient advocates. Finding a solution to the issue of safe nurse to patient ratios is the ultimate example of patient advocacy. The health care industry must maintain patient safety as the number one goal in health care. This goal must be attained in a quality and cost effective manner. Health care facilities, administrators, and staff must learn to collaborate with one another to acquire a solution to this problem.
Angle
This research paper will explore alternative methods of implementing nurse to patient ratios without decreasing crucial staffing levels and without additional government regulations while maintaining safe quality health care.
Providing safe quality health care is expensive. Health care facilities are always in search of ways to trim spending wh...

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...ical Care Nurse, 31(6), 55-65. Retrieved from http://ccn.aacnjournals.org/content/31/6/55.full.pdf
Nurse staffing. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/nursestaffing
Scott, II, R. D. (2009). The direct medical costs of healthcare-associated infections in U.S. hospitals and the benefits of prevention. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/hai/pdfs/hai/scott_costpaper.pdf
Warye, K., & Granato, J. (2009, January). Target: zero hospital-acquired infections [Feature story]. Healthcare Financial Management, 86-91. Retrieved from http://www.apic.org/Resource_/TinyMceFileManager/Advocacy-PDFs/HFMJan2009WaryeandGranatoTargetZeroHospitalAcquiredInfections.pdf
Welton, J. M. (2007, September). Mandatory hospital nurse to patient staffing ratios: Time to take a different approach. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 12(3). http://dx.doi.org/10.3912/OJIN.Vol12No03Man01

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