Nursing Staffing Issues In Nursing

Staffing issues amongst the nursing profession has been a major concern. Safety of both nurse and patient is important. There is a strong correlation between having an adequate nursing staff and patient safety outcomes. The rise in the acuity of patients and shorter hospital stays has been linked to errors, nurse burnout, and patients sometimes feeling neglected. Patient satisfaction has become the major focus point since the change of our health care system today. Being able to find an optimal nurse- to- patient ratio has been an ongoing struggle in mostly all health care facilities. This paper will answer the PICO question, how is quality of care and patient safety affected in regards to nursing staffing and nurse patient ratios?

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Sometimes there is success in doing this but not always. When staffing is low it can have a negative impact on the staff because of the acuity of the patients that are on these units. In this case the turnover rate in this facility is low. The problem arises when a nurse is out on vacation or is unable to work on a certain day of the week. The question was asked, can more full time nurses be hired? The answer was no because each nurse manager in the hospital have to stay within a certain budget. There can be a limited amount of FTE reported for each unit. According to Tzeng 2013, simply reporting the nursing personnel FTE numbers is not sufficient to capture the nurse staffing profile of a hospital or a specialty area. The numbers in data is not what is actual represented in

It is a daily struggle that nurses have to go through. It take away from the individualized can that patients deserved. Nurse have to learn how to do the tasks in a fast paced manner in order to care for their patients. If the patient have a high acuity and high in ratio it can be difficult and dangerous for nurses to handle safely. There should be a way for nurses to effectively deal with this issue that just keep on growing. Nurses should step outside of the box and start to do more lobbying in the government instead of others who know nothing about the profession of nursing. Our voices need to be heard because we are advocating of the safety of all human beings that are in our care when they are ill. Patient safety should always be the key factor in aiding to make them better. Reimbursement from health insurance companies is indeed important, but how important will it be if the patient is harmed during time of care. According to Needleman as mentioned above staffing does matter and is very important in achieving patient satisfaction. This should not be neglected in order for a facility to try and cut back on hiring more people to get the job done right. Neglect in this area could affect reimbursements