Patient Safety And Quality Care

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Patient safety and quality care are not new to healthcare workers. After the introduction of Affordable Care Act into the health care system these words have gained increased importance in healthcare industry because, now the payments and incentives are focusing on value of service and patient outcomes. Nursing care has a major role in value of care and patient outcomes. Safe staffing is a crucial key to safeguard patient safety and optimum care as nurses are in the front line to provide patient care. Nurse leaders in United States have been working hard for many years to put this idea into effect. Safe staffing was an impossible solution until some states started to implement safe staffing in hospitals. There are two national safe patient ratio bills in front of our policy makers to take favorable decision.
Evidences to support safe staffing
Nurses in United states have been raising concerns related to inadequate staffing for nursing care for decades. California is the first state which implemented minimum nurse to patient staffing requirement in U.S nursing history. Researchers have done many studies regarding the safe staffing solution. One of the famous study was conducted by researchers in Pennsylvania university. It compared the outcomes of California’s nurse patient ratio with New Jersey and Pennsylvania’s nurse patient ratio where safe staffing plan was not implemented. That study has shown some remarkable evidences to support the safe staffing proposal in nursing profession. According to that study 29 percent of nurses in California reported burnout, compared with 36 percent of nurses in Pennsylvania and 34 percent of nurses in New Jersey, states without safe staffing strategies. The study revealed that 20 percent of nur...

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...atient safety and offer a balanced approach for adequate staffing for quality patient care and safety ("Congress.Gov," 2015).
Recommendation
Incorporating safe staffing plan into healthcare industry and taking measures to retain nurses in nursing profession are helpful. Allowing federal grants and funds to nursing schools and colleges to improve current nursing school facilities and attracting more student nurses to the profession can solve nurse shortage issue to implement better staffing plan. Encouraging nurses to obtain professional certifications to improve skills and to go for higher studies are useful. Empowering nurses and spreading the value and importance of nurses through media to get a positive image of nurses among public are other recommendations. In addition to the above recommendations, most important is to enact the two bills already in Congress.

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