Background The fundamental actions of hospitals and other healthcare organizations depend on the role of nurses. In the modern day healthcare settings, nurses are the ones who determine the quality of services provided to patients. However, they face some major challenges that are threatening to reduce their effectiveness and efficiency towards meeting organizational goals. One of these significant problems is burnout, which comes as a result of unending work pressures that are ineffectively handled. Burnout is defined as emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion, which occurs when nurses experience intense stress, but over an extended period of time it will lead to increased turnover rates. Burnout is considered as a psychological Interestingly, some studies explained that an addition of one patient per nurse was associated with a 7% increase in the chance of the patient dying within 30 days after admission (Alexander, 2014). Also, burnout can happen to anyone and at any time. Improving nurses work environment is the key to resolve this issue. In order to reduce nurses’ burnout, health administrators, nurse managers, and health leaders should build a healthy work environment that supports nurses in providing the best quality of care to their patients and improve patient satisfaction. Besides, part of the intervention is assessing and educating nurses about burnout (Erickson, 2015). The clinical hours of the practicum course were at Indiana Regional Medical Center (IRMC), which is a general medical and surgical hospital in Indiana, Pennsylvania, with 164 beds. The unit manager and Ms. Wolfe, who is the charge nurse of the Pediatric unit and also my mentor, recommended that the focus of the project is to work on raising the nurses' staff awareness of burnout at IRMC. Thus, this project focuses on decreasing the pediatric nurses’ burnout rate at Developed by Deming in 1986, this model is a continuous improvement tool applied in the healthcare settings to improve processes and outcomes (Xie, Wang, & Chen, 2011). Commonly known as a rapid-cycle improvement, PDSA is made up of small cycles that occur in sequence. The model has been tried and tested in the U.K. and the U.S., it focuses on service, product, and design systems to overcome barriers, manage variation, enhance client relationship, improve product, introduce new changes to the work environment, improve inventory, optimize workflow, and eliminate waste (Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2011). PDSA model is considered the most appropriate framework for this project because it allows testing changes through a small scale and evaluates the effect of the changes quickly (Taylor et al., 2013). One advantage of this principle is that the PDSA method will allow modifying the plan quickly before implementing it on a broader scale (Taylor et al., 2013). (See figure
The issues of nursing burnout and compassion fatigue are an important one in part, because of the ongoing nursing shortage across the united states. Per the American colleges of nursing “the U.S. is projected to experience a shortage of Registered Nurses (RN’s) that is expected to intensify as Baby Boomers age and the need for health care grows” (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2017). The ACA fact sheet cites several reasons for this including; the increasing needs of an aging population, healthcare reform, decreased enrollment in nursing programs, shortages of nursing faculty, large portions of working nurses
Working in long-term care can be overwhelming. Imagine you are a new graduate nurse putting your new found knowledge and skills to practice for the first time. Your orientation lasted three days which is standard for nurse home orientation compared to hospital orientation that last approximately six to eight weeks for new grads. The shift has just begun and already you have a new admit, new found pressure ulcer to assess, a possible medication reaction, several new orders to take off and eight patients to document on for varying reasons. Feelings of frustration and confusion take over as you are the only nurse on the unit along with a Certified Medication Technician (CMT) and three Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) taking care of 47 patients. Ideal nurse-to-patient ratio continues to be a national issue in both the hospital and long-term care setting (LTC). In the LTC setting there is no official nurse-to-patient ratio; there is a suggested staff-to-patient ratio. This issue not only affects the new licensed nurses but the seasoned nurse as well. Recently, there has been controversial debates as to whether heavy workloads are detrimental to patients. The federal, state, and local government regulates many aspects of healthcare. However, it is the physicians, nurses and other healthcare professional that provide care directly to patients. Consequently, does insufficient staffing, heavy workloads, and unsupportive work environment directly contribute to poor patient satisfaction, nurse burnout, high turnover and job dissatisfaction?
Recent literature reports that there is a nursing shortage and it is continually increasing. Data released by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2011) projects that the shortage, would increase to 260,000 by the year 2025. AACN (2011) also reported that 13% of newly registered nurses changed jobs and 37% were ready to change within a year. A study conducted reports that there is a correlation between higher nursing workloads and nurse burnout, retention rates, job dissatisfaction and adverse patient outcomes (Vahey & Aiken, 2004). Among the nurses surveyed in the study, over 40% stated that they were suffering from burnout while 1 in 5 nurses intended
Oyeleye, O., DNP,RN, Patricia, H., PhD, RN, O'Connor, N., PhD, RN, & Dunn, D., EdD, RN. (2013). Relationship of Workplace Incivility, Stress, and Burnout on Nurses' Turnover Intentions and Pschyological Empowerment. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 43(10), 536-542.
One of the most serious issues in nursing, that can affect a nurses career is nursing burn- out. According to the article “Where have all the nurses gone”, current nurses that are practicing, report high rates of job dissatisfaction (which is part of burn out) and 1 of 5 nurses may quit nursing in the next 5 years (Dworkin, 2002). Burnout is associated with nurses not coming in to work, not feeling satisfied when doing their job, high turnover rates and a lack of commitment to the work (Katisfaraki, 2013). If a nurse becomes burned- out, they may not take care of their patients as well and could make mistakes with medication administration. A study performed in the United States by Dr. Jeannie Cimiottti, shows that hospitals with high burn-out rates among nurses have higher levels UTI’s, and surgical infections (World, 2012). Nursing burnout not only affects the nurse, but it also affects the patient, the nurses’ colleagues, and the nurses’ family; nursing burn out often leads to emotional exhaustion and depression, that can effect relations and communication between the nurse effected and the person they are communicating with. This paper will cover what burn-out is, who is susceptible to burn out, and treatment and prevent nursing burn out.
A study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that “annually approximately 1.7 million hospitalized patients acquire infections while being treated for other medical conditions, and more than 98,000 of these patients will die as a result of their acquired infection” (Cimiotti et al., 2012, p. 486). It was suggested that nursing burnout has been linked to suboptimal patient care and patient dissatisfaction. Also, the study shows that if the percentage of nurses with high burnout could be reduced to 10% from an average of 30%, approximately five thousand infections would be prevented (Cimiotti et al., 2012). In summary, increasing nursing staffing and reduction burnout in RNs is a promising strategy to help control urinary and surgical infections in acute care facilities (Cimiotti et al.,
In the recent past, nursing has come to the forefront as a popular career amongst students across the globe. The demand for nurses has kept increasing gradually over the years. In fact, the number of registered nurses does not meet the demand of the private and public health sector. This phenomenon has resulted in a situation where the available registered nurses have to work extra hours in order to meet the patients’ needs. With this in mind, the issue of nurse fatigue has come up as a common problem in nursing. According to the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA), nurse fatigue is “a feeling of tiredness” that penetrates a persons physical, mental and emotional realms limiting their ability to function normally. Fatigue does not just involve sleepiness as has been assumed before. It involves utter exhaustion that is not easily mitigated through rest. When nurses ignore the signs of fatigue, they risk the development of chronic fatigue and other health problems that may not be easily treated. Additionally, fatigue may cause nurses to lose more time at work as they may have to be away from work for several days to treat it. The issue of nurse fatigue has permeated the nursing profession to the extent of causing errors in the work performed by nurses. Fatigue causes a decrease in a nurse’s ability to make accurate decisions for themselves and their patients. It is therefore important to find ways to curb nurse fatigue such that it is no longer a problem. Nurse fatigue is a danger to the patients, organizations and to the nurses themselves and must be mitigated adequately.
Burnout is a highly unusual type of stress disorder that is essentially characterized by emotional exhaustion, lack of empathy with patients, depersonalization, and a reduced sense of personal accomplishments. The nature of the work that healthcare practitioners perform predisposes them to emotional exhaustion. On the other hand, the lack of empathy towards patients is caused by the nurses feeling that they are underpaid and unappreciated. Numerous researches have associated burnout with the increasing rate of nurse turnover. This paper explores the causes of burnouts in nurses as well as what can be done to prevent the them.
Nurses want to give complete and quality care, but are unable to, due to the constant needs of their workload and inadequate staffing. They have to prioritize their patients needs based on the most critical treatments first. Then whatever time is left, they fill in what treatments they can. Some reasons that nursing treatments are missed include: too few staff, time required for the nursing intervention, poor use of existing staff resources and ineffective delegation.” (Kalisch, 2006) Many nurses become emotionally stressed and unsatisfied with their jobs. (Halm et al., 2005; Kalisch,
To implement change in a heath care setting, a PDSA concept will be used. Langley developed the PDSA cycle to describe the importance’s that the change and the developing of these crucial changes which will hopefully help lead to the improvements (Langley et al., 2009) (see appendix 2) for details. The National Health Service use PDSA and will implement the necessary steps to improve the services for the public (NHS Institute, 2006).
The article examined many studies conducted to measure stress and burnout in nurses and found that the environment and conditions in the workplace have a great deal to do with the perceived stress levels. In the article, it speaks of the definition of stress as being a negative factor that is perceived to pose a threat to the perceiver. This definition goes on to state that one person may see an event as stressful, while another may view the same situation as exhilarating. The important part of this “new definition” is that we can choose, by manipulation of our attitudes, to view our lives as stress filled or an enjoyable ride. One’s perception is a big factor in workplace stress.
The nursing profession is one of the most physically, emotionally, and mentally taxing career fields. Working long shifts, placing other’s needs before your own, dealing with sickness and death on a regular basis, and working in a high stress environment are all precursors to developing occupational burnout in the nursing profession. Burnout refers to physical, emotional and mental exhaustion, which can lead to an emotionally detached nurse, who feels hopeless, apathetic, and unmotivated. Burnout extends beyond the affected nurse and begins to affect the care patients receive. Researchers have found that hospitals with high burnout rates have lower patient satisfaction scores (Aiken et al 2013). There are various measures that nurses can take
Burnout Research, Vol 1, Iss 1, Pp 19-28 (2014), (1), 19. doi:10.1016/j.burn.2014.03.002 Henry, B. J. (2014). Nursing burnout interventions: what is being done?. Clinical Journal Of Oncology Nursing, 18(2), 211-214. doi:10.1188/14.CJON.211-214 Norman, V., Rossillo, K., & Skelton, K. (2016). Creating healing environments through the theory of caring.
Burnout is a type of psychological stress. Stress and burnout are common among nurses who are the largest group of health care professions. Nurses experience burnout at some point of the career based on the intensity of workload and the emotional bonds that form with patients. The strain of nursing leads to burnout that contributes to physical, mental, and emotional exhaust of a nurse There is a concern that high levels of nurse burnout could adversely affect patients outcome. Patient safety is a priority, thus understanding the cause of nursing burnout is significant. There is association of long shifts hours, inadequate staffing, poor nursing benefits contributes to an increase in burnout leads to a risk of patient safety.
Poghosyan, Clarke, Finlayson, and Aiken (2010) in a cross-national comparative research explored the relationship between nurses’ burnout and the quality of care in 53,846 nurses from six countries. Their researched confirmed that nurses around the world experience burnout due to increase workload. Burnout was manifested as fatigue, irritability, insomnia, headaches, back pain, weight gain, high blood pressure, and depression. Burnout influenced nurses’ job performance, lowered patient satisfaction, and it was significantly associated with poor quality of care. Patient safety decreased as nurses’ job demands