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Nurse to patient ratios and patient outcomes
Communication is an important part of the interaction between nurse and patient
Improving nursing communication with patients
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When asked what the major factor in communication between patient and nurse, the first thing that comes to mind are call bells. “…the call bell is considered to be a patient’s lifeline. It is perhaps one of the few means of control that patients have over their situation” (Deitrick, Bovoy, Stern, and Panik, 2006, p. 316). With that being stated, patients use call bells to let their nursing staff know if a they need anything such as toileting needs, pain management, repositioning, or even getting up out of their bed to ambulate.
I feel that call bell efficiency is something in the health care field, particularly related to nursing, that needs to be addressed. Although my experience in the nursing field is still very limited, I have already observed that call bells tend to be taken very lightly. In my opinion, call bells
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This brings on a great deal of problems and still shows our shortage of nurses is not going to get better anytime soon. With this shortage of nurses, it brings on the issues of fatigue and injury. Fatigue and injury can make nurses more prone to making errors during the work day, which in the long run is not a good environment for patients to be in. Increasing the nurse-to-patient ratios can help with increasing a nurse’s job satisfaction. In my opinion, if nurses are happy, their patients will be happy too. With their greater job satisfaction, it brings along the increase in call bell efficiency, which then brings along greater patient satisfaction.
Because increasing the nurse-to-patient ratio is such a difficult change, other interventions can be put into place to move towards the prompt answering of call bells. Some examples of these other interventions can be as simple as hourly rounding and rescheduling meal breaks. Studies conducted with these interventions have shown a positive correlation to overall care for the
Patients expect instant response to call lights due to today’s technological advancements. This can negatively impact nurse stress and cause contempt toward the patient. However, the expectation to respond promptly improves safety and encourages frequent rounding. Also, aiming for high patient satisfaction scores on the HCAHPS/Press Ganey by fulfilling patient requests can overshadow safe, efficient, and necessary healthcare. Although patient satisfaction is important, ultimately, the patient’s health takes precedence over satisfying patient and family requests, especially when those requests are unnecessary, harmful, or take away from the plan of care (Junewicz & Youngner, 2015). The HCAHPS/Press Ganey survey focuses on the patient’s perception of care. The problem with this aspect of the survey is that the first and foremost goal of nurses should not be to increase a patient’s score based on perception. According to an article in Health Facilities Management, the nurse’s top priority is to provide the safest, most quality care possible for patients with the resources they are given (Hurst, 2013). Once this has been accomplished, the nurse can then help the patient realize that the most
The United States offers some of the most established and advanced health care in the world. Practitioners and administers are constantly trying to improve the quality of care received by patients in the US. Data has consistently shown that the presence of a registered nurse contributes directly to positive patient outcomes (Cho et al., 2016). The debate across the country, however, concerns the precise number of staff required to provide safe, high-quality care. The issue of safe staffing is one that is of great importance to all involved in the delivery of health care across the country.
Nurses hate it when patients are constantly turning their call lights on. The nurse feels like they are continuously in and out of that room for every little thing. Patients hate it when they wait a long time for someone to show up after pressing their call light. The patient begins to feel that they are not being take care of well and are being ignored. Patient satisfaction surveys state that one of the top complaints from patients were call lights not being answered in a timely manner. There has been evidence to prove that if facilities implement hourly rounding into their daily routine patient satisfaction goes up and call light use is greatly reduced. It is also proven if patient satisfaction goes up more nurses are satisfied with their job performance and can take care of their patients better.
The problem, as defined for my argument research paper, is that to cut costs, hospitals have been steadily increasing the number of patients nurses must care for. In many areas it's not uncommon for one nurse to have to assess, give medications to, and manage the care of as many as 12 patients. This puts tremendous strain on nurses. Many of the studies I have seen in my research indicate that a high ration of patients to nurses increases the rate of death or other poor outcomes for patients. It also leads to increased nurse burnout and higher turnover, though at this point I believe my paper will focus on patient outcomes.
In the case of nurse staffing, the more nurses there are the better outcome of patient safety. When there enough staff to handle the number of patients, there is a better quality of care that can be provided. The nurses would be able to focus on the patients, monitor the conditions closely, performs assessments as they should, and administer medications on time. There will be a reduction in errors, patient complications, mortality, nurse fatigue and nurse burnout (Curtan, 2016). While improving patient satisfaction and nurse job satisfaction. This allows the principle of non-maleficence, do no harm, to be carried out correctly. A study mentioned in Scientific America showed that after California passed a law in 2014 to regulate hospital staffing and set a minimum of nurse to patient ratios, there was an improvement in patient care. Including lower rates of post-surgery infection, falls and other micro emergencies in hospitals (Jacobson,
When the nursing team hourly rounds on their patients it is shown to have a unique relationship. There is a decrease call light usage, decrease in falls, decrease patients developing pressure ulcers, and decrease patient anxiety. With hourly rounding patient
Many nurses face the issue of understaffing and having too much of a workload during one shift. When a unit is understaffed not only do the nurses get burnt out, but the patients also don’t receive the care they deserve. The nurse-patient ratio is an aspect that gets overlooked in many facilities that could lead to possible devastating errors. Nurse- patient ratio issues have been a widely studied topic and recently new changes have been made to improve the problem.
Clinical alarms hazards threat hospital settings. There were “566 deaths related to monitoring alarms” reported from a separate Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) database (Cvach, 2012, p. 269). Pelletier (2013) reported one of the biggest contributing factors to patient deaths was related to “alarm fatigue” (p. 292). The purpose of this paper is to review research and explore best practices to support alarm management and the prevention of alarm fatigue and patient harm.
These articles have many similarities when discussing the issue of staffing shortages. For patients, their loved ones and the general population, they don’t understand the ramifications and strain that staffing shortages have on nurses. People expect and deserve complete, competent and safe care when they are patients. These articles bring to light all the struggles that nurses have to deal with. Nurses are fearful that they will make mistakes, will harm patients, and will harm themselves. (Bae, 2012; Erlen, 2001; Martin, 2015) Overtime can be overwhelming and exhausting, which can lead to errors being made. (Bae, 2012; Erlen, 2001) These articles perceive that it may be beneficial for nurses, patients, and healthcare facilities to decrease the nurse-to-patient ratio, however, this option is not always
...anging as new research and methods are discovered to better serve the patients and healthcare professionals (Ignatavicius & Workman, 2013). As nurses use rounding in all their patient care, they will become more skilled with the nursing process, especially with assessments and interventions. Patients are the major users of hospitals and deserve the highest level of care with the best outcomes. With nurse rounding, patient outcomes are improving with a reduction in patient falls and pressure ulcers, use of call light, patient complaints, and most importantly an increase in patient satisfaction (Forde-Johnston, 2014). Nurses play a critical role in the patient care experience; they have the ability to transform healthcare by delivering optimal care thereby improving quality and safety through competent and compassionate use of nurse rounding (Blakley, et al.,2011).
Thousands of nurses throughout the nation are exhausted and overwhelmed due to their heavy workload. The administrators do not staff the units properly; therefore, they give each nurse more patients to care for to compensate for the lack of staff. There are several reasons to why
Nurse to patient ratios are extremely paramount in assisting with overall patient mortality and wellness of our nurses. It is an issues which unfortunately affected by legislation of our government (which is affect specifically on a monetary basis). My research via Academic Search Complete allowed me to identify topics that assist my PICOT question, and enables me to further analyze and research to find out what issues directly affect is matter. Proper nurse to patient ratio, operational costs, government regulation, nurse work life and health, patient wellness, and nursing procedures and duration of those procedures are all affected by this topic and we must ensure that all are properly balanced.
Factors such as, heavy workloads, stress, job dissatisfaction, frequent medical errors, and intention of leaving the job are all common for nurses to experience, especially during the nursing shortage crisis. Not only do the nurses suffer during a shortage, but the patients ' health outcomes suffer even more. For instance, there are higher rates of infectious diseases and adverse patient outcomes, such as urinary tract infections (UTIs), upper gastrointestinal bleeding, shock, pneumonia, prolonged hospital stays, failure to rescue, and mortality. As a result, this leads to higher re-admission rates for patients. Furthermore, high patient-to-nurse ratios cause heavy workloads due to an inadequate supply of nurses, an increased demand for nurses, a reduction in staffing and an increase in overtime, and a shortened length of stay for patients. Without the heavy workloads that nurses have to endure on a daily basis, there would more time for nurses to communicate more effectively with physicians, insurance companies, and patients and their families. Those heavy workloads are the result of hospitals reducing the nursing staff and implementing mandatory overtime policies just to meet unexpectedly high demands. Unfortunately, the nursing shortage has affected nurses ' mental and physical health. For example, the most common health concerns for nurses include cardiovascular health, occupational injuries and illnesses, and emotional and physical exhaustion. Therefore, safe-staffing ratios/levels have to become the main
As reported by Bowron (2010), hospitals will benefit from reducing patient-nurse ratio by saving money. Bowron point out that an adequate staffing ratio could lower hospitals’ costs significantly in the following ways:
Firstly, Nurses must develop the right communication tools when dealing with their patients. For example most nurses do bedside reporting, before they change their shift in the morning, therefore they would be relaying information to the other nurse about the patient they dealt with during the night. The nurse that is going off shift would give a report to the incoming nurse in the presence of the patient. He or she has to discuss the condition of the patient, medications and the procedures so the next nurse would be on the same level. Most nurses in the General Hospital do their reporting by the bedside of their patients.