Nurses play a critical role in ensuring patient safety during direct care delivery. They interact with physicians, pharmacists, families, and other healthcare team members at the bedside consistently. Nurses are essential in promptly coordinating and updating team members on the patient's condition. To ensure high-quality care, nurses are responsible for various tasks such as monitoring patients for clinical deterioration, identifying errors and near-misses, understanding care protocols and system flaws, and recognizing and communicating changes in patient conditions. The vigilance of nurses at the bedside is crucial to patient safety. It is evident that a nurse's ability to provide safe care diminishes as the number of assigned patients increases. …show more content…
It is important to note that the relationship between nursing workload and patient safety is significant, with the nurse-to-patient ratio being just one component. Patient outcomes may also be affected by the overall workload of nurses. Due to the demanding nature of nursing work, there is a possibility of errors occurring during care provision. Regular breaks during a nurse's shift have been proven to reduce the likelihood of mistakes, especially in medication administration. The correlation between interruptions and errors highlights the direct impact of the work environment on patient safety for nurses. Although some interruptions are considered a normal part of patient care, it is important to recognize that they can contribute to errors. Additionally, longer shifts and overtime have been associated with an increased risk of mistakes, as exemplified by a well-known case where a nurse working a double shift made an error that led to criminal …show more content…
Research has shown that a higher patient-to-nurse ratio is strongly linked to instances of missed nursing care. These instances are widely acknowledged as common and widespread, primarily due to systemic factors that negatively impact both patients and nursing professionals. Failure to provide necessary care has been associated with job dissatisfaction, absenteeism, medication errors, infections, falls, pressure injuries, readmissions, and failure to rescue. The main cause of unfulfilled nursing care is the structural obstacle to managing conflicting priorities and time constraints. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure adequate staffing levels. Creating a collaborative culture within the unit and organization promotes teamwork, which in turn improves nursing job satisfaction and may reduce the burden associated with unfinished work. In 2004, the National Quality Forum established nursing-sensitive care voluntary consensus criteria. These criteria encompass patient-centered outcomes such as pressure ulcers and falls, which are considered indicators of the quality of nursing care. They also include system-related indicators such as nursing turnover, staffing ratios, ratings of the nursing practice environment, and nursing skill mix and care hours. The Magnet Hospital Recognition program, overseen by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, aims to
Safety competency is essential for high-quality care in the medical field. Nurses play an important role in setting the bar for quality healthcare services through patient safety mediation and strategies. The QSEN definition of safety is that it “minimizes risk of harm to patients and providers through both system effectiveness and individual performance.” This papers primary purpose is to review and better understand the importance of safety knowledge, skills, and attitude within nursing education, nursing practice, and nursing research. It will provide essential information that links health care quality to overall patient safety.
Over the past several years extended work shifts and overtime has increased among nurses in the hospital setting due to the shortage of nurses. Errors significantly increase and patient safety can be compromised when nurses work past a twelve hour shift or more than 40 hours a week. Hazardous conditions are created when the patient acuity is high, combined with nurse shortages, and a rapid rate of admissions and discharges. Many nurses today are not able to take regularly scheduled breaks due to the patient work load. On units where nurses are allowed to self-schedule, sixteen and twenty-four hour shifts are becoming more common, which does not allow for time to recover between shifts. Currently there are no state or federal regulations that restrict nurses from working excessive hours or mandatory overtime to cover vacancies. This practice by nurses is controversial and potentially dangerous to patients (Rogers, Hwang, Scott, Aiken, & Dinges, 2004). Burnout, job dissatisfaction, and stress could be alleviated if the proper staffing levels are in place with regards to patient care. Studies indicate that the higher the nurse-patient ratio, the worse the outcome will be. Nurse Manager’s need to be aware of the adverse reactions that can occur from nurses working overtime and limits should be established (Ford, 2013).
Furthermore, there should be enough trust between the nurses and physicians where they can easily put aside their egos and ask for a second opinion when they have any doubts concerning a patient's safety. This was clearly exemplified when the nursing staff attending to Lewis Blackman failed to contact the physician when various side effects arose; instead they tailored the signs to fit the expected side effects. Even after Blackman’s health was deteriorating, the nurses remained in their “tribes” and never once broke out of it to ask for help. The entire hospital was built on strong culture of remaining in their tribes instead of having goals oriented towards patients care and safety.
The nursing profession is a profession where people put their trust in you to provide care that is not only effective, ethical, and moral, but safe. Not all health situations are simple or by the book. Not all hospitals have the same nurse-patient ratios, equipment, supplies, or support available, but all nurses have “the professional obligation to raise concerns regarding any patient assignment that puts patients or themselves at risk for harm” (ANA, 2009). When arriving at work for a shift, nurses must ensure that the assignment is safe for not only the patients, but also for themselves. There are times when this is not the situation. In these cases, the nurse has the right to invoke Safe Harbor, because according the ANA, nurses also “have the professional right to accept, reject or object in writing to any patient assignment that puts patient or themselves at serious risk for harm” (ANA, 2009).
Professional collaboration is an important aspect regarding patient safety in the medical field. This is a time when different kinds off professionals collaborate with one another about a patient’s health status and condition. “Specifically, Interprofessionality is a process by which professionals reflect on and develop ways of practicing that provides an integrated and cohesive answer to the needs of the client/family/population…(involving) continuous interaction and knowledge sharing between professionals” (Black, 2014). The collaboration of different professionals allow for a better decision to be made towards the patient’s health outcomes.
As defined by the American of Nurses Association (ANA, 2002), “Nursing-Sensitive Indicators are those indicators that capture care or its outcomes most affected by nursing care.” The ANA uses the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI) to statistically test the relationships between nursing interventions, staffing levels, and positive patient outcomes (Nursing Quality - NDNQI, 2016). These indicators utilize unit specific data enabling action planning and intervention according to the unit if improvement is needed (Nursing Quality – NDNQI, 2016). The purpose of this paper is to show how Good Samaritan Medical Center’s 5th floor, pavilion 2, Medical Surgical/Oncology unit uses nurse sensitive indicators such as pain management,
Every day there is a constant trust adhered to many different people in the profession of Nursing—the decision of what will help patients in terms of medicine, and the confidence to make these decisions. One false act or one slight misdiagnoses of medication to a patient could be the prime factor in whether the patient lives or dies. Nurses in hospitals across the country are spread thin, and thus makes the probability of mistakes higher. If a medicinal dose is off by even one decimal a patient could die, so the only real answer is for nurses to not be afraid to ask for assistance, always follow procedure and voice opinion is they feel something is wrong.
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”.
O’Daniel, M., & A.H., R. (2008). Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. Rockville: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2637/
The authors of the article “Is Nursing Care Missed? A Comparative Study of Three North Carolina Hospitals” seek to “identify frequency and types of missed care as well as reasons for missed care in three acute care hospitals in North Carolina” (Maloney, S., Fencl, J., & Hardin, S. R., 2015, p. 231). The authors stated the importance of this matter because by decreasing the amount of missed nursing care, the quality of care would improve. Improved quality of nursing care would also improve patient satisfaction (Maloney et. al, 2015). If the most frequent types of missed nursing care and the reasons behind them are identified, hospitals and nurses can work to eliminate missed care altogether.
Patient safety should be the highest priority when it comes to health care, so why wouldn't the administrators reduce the ratio of nurse to patients to provide maximum patient care? Nurses that have a higher workload of patients are probably more prone to commit a medication error because they may not have the time to do the five checks of medication administration: the right drug, the right dose, the right route, the right time, and the right patient.
Patient’s safety will be compromised because increase of patient to nurse ratio will lead to mistakes in delivering quality care. In 2007, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) conducted a metanalysis and found that “shortage of registered nurses, in combination with increased workload, poses a potential threat to the quality of care… increases in registered nurse staffing was associated with a reduction in hospital-related mortality and failure to rescue as well as reduced length of stay.” Intense workload, stress, and dissatisfaction in one’s profession can lead to health problems. Researchers found that maintaining and improving a healthy work environment will facilitate safety, quality healthcare and promote a desirable professional avenue.
Patients Safety is the most crucial about healthcare sector around the world. It is defined as ‘the prevention of patients harm’ (Kohn et al. 2000). Even thou patient safety is shared among organization members, Nurses play a key role, as they are liable for direct and continuous patients care. Nurses should be capable of recognizing the risk of patients and address it to the other multi disciplinary on time.
Several consequences of high nursing workload have been proven to hinder the quality of patient care. Carayon and Gurses’s research (2008) indicates that heavy workload can contribute to errors, shortcuts, guideline violations, and poor communication with physicians and other providers, thus compromising the quality and safety of patient care. In addition, the research not only implies that patients may not receive proper care, but also they can experience less satisfaction with
Mitchell, P. H. (2008). Defining patient safety and quality care an evidence-based handbook for nurses. Rockville,Maryland: Hughes. DOI: //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2681/