Mandatory Staffing Study

Mandatory staffing is an issue that needs to be addressed on the business side, patient side and the nursing side. According to Rajcki a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in October 2002 linked higher patient-to-nurse ratios in hospitals with increased patient mortality and increased nurse dissatisfaction with their jobs. The study, which looked at outcome data from more than 230,000 surgical patients discharged from 168 hospitals, found that each additional patient per nurse was associated with a 7% increase in the likelihood of patient mortality, and a 15% increase in job dissatisfaction for the nurses. (Rajcki, 2009)
A number of studies within the last 10 years have shown strong associations between patient

mortality and low staffing levels. Aiken et al (2002) looked at not only how insufficient staff affected patient care, but also how it impacted on nurses’ job satisfaction and burnout.
According to (ANA, 2014) to mandatory staffing ratios will help to reduction medication errors, will help to retain experienced nurses, and decreased hospital readmission. (American Nurses Association, 2014.Some negative impact of mandatory staffing includes increases stress on already overburdened health care, ancillary staff may need to be laid off to meet mandatory staffing, which in turn increases RN workload. (Rajecki, 2009).
Another problem related to mandatory staffing ratios is the cost associated with hiring new nurses. For example, consider a medium-size hospital that has on average 100 adult medical-surgical patients. An increase of just one hour of additional care by a registered nurse per day at $40 per hour would increase costs by $4,000 per day and $1.4 million dollars annually. The hospital will not receive any additional revenue for providing this additional patient care. (Welton, 2007)
On my perspective I don’t think is a good idea to implement mandatory staffing in the midst of nursing shortage, because having mandated staffing does not incorporate patient acuity levels. And is not necessary that it will meet the all patient needs because all the patient are not the same. Some patient have more need than others.