Melissa, I am glad that you mentioned safe staffing in your post this week as one way that nurses can help facilitate positive change throughout the community. Not only does safe staffing help to save patient lives it also helps to prevent burnout at the nursing level. According to Peate (2015), nurses face major challenges in order to deliver the best possible care with fewer resources that is not only financial but human as well. This creates an environment of overworked nurses who are more than likely letting their health take a backseat. “Individual nurses are going the extra mile to get the job done, yet the damage to their health is real and is happening nationwide” (Peate, 2015, p. 133). There is one particular vivid memory of an example of short staffing that I personally experienced on my floor and although one of my …show more content…
The surgeon came in and they ended up taking her back to surgery immediately but this incident happened over the course of three hours. I manually held pressure on her groin to try to stop the bleeding with the intensive care nurses at the bedside to help if I needed. Eventually, after the two-hour mark, things started to slow down and I ended up getting pulled from the room to take a phone call. It was my supervisor asking me to take another patient onto my team of five that I already had and was not even able to check on during this incident. Needless to say, I told her no and she ended up sending the patient anyways. Thankfully one of the other nurses got the patient settled and as a team, they all took care of this new patient despite having five others of their own. This is a very good example of how dangerous it is to be short staffed. Acting in the spheres of influence is one way to try and prevent future problems like this one from ever happening again. Unfortunately, short staffing is a constant problem for nurses everywhere and doing the best we can do takes a toll on our health. Great job on your post and thanks
Nurses and others in the medical field are overworked and understaffed because the government has made cutbacks to the health care system. We live in a country where our health care is a privilege to have, but getting ill becomes a problem if there are not adequate facilities and professionals to care for the sick.
As a result, she breached the standard 6 which states that “registered nurses should provide a safe, appropriate and responsive quality nursing practice” (NMBA, 2016). In line with this standard, nurses should use applicable procedures to identify and act efficiently to address potential and actual risks such as unexpected changes in a patient’s condition (NMBA, 2016). Through early identification and response by the nurse, this will ensure that the patient’s condition is recognised and appropriate action is provided and escalated (Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2011). Moreover, the nurse did not immediately escalate the patient’s deteriorating condition to the members of the health care team.
Safe staffing issue has been identified as one of the problem in health care. The problem resulted from the inappropriate ratio between the nurse and the number of patients a nurse takes care within a shift. Patients and nurses well-being are being at risk because of the inappropriate safe staffing because of nurses feeling overwhelmed and stressed with their job. It was learned from the previous papers that the issue with staff level can be intervened by applying the theory of Health Promotion Model as a framework in assisting nurse leaders in creating policies that ensure healthy and appropriate work practices, determine the appropriate number of nurse to
There was inappropriate staffing in the Emergency Room which was a factor in the event. There was one registered nurse (RN) and one licensed practical nurse (LPN) on duty at the time of the incident. Additional staff was available and not called in. The Emergency Nurses Association holds the position there should be two registered nurses whose responsibility is to prov...
Frith, K. H., Anderson, E. F., Tseng, F., & Fong, E. A. (2012). Nurse staffing is an important
Last, The Magic of Chaos, that’s every as nurse. Around five am my phone rings, Good morning Ms. Bushnell, “I can’t work today”. That’s usually how my day begins eighty percent of the time. Those phone calls would not have been so bad, if I was working with a full deck of cards. My organization is not the only one with this dilemma of being short staffed, this has become the normal for healthcare. For nurses, this can have profound impact on day-to-day work causing burn out. As a leader, I had to accept the reality that being short staffed was not going to change and adapt accordingly. When leaders are innovative, empower others and promote shared decision, individuals are more likely to embrace the change. Keeping a positive attitude, recognizing others for their hard work and letting them know their valued can increase staff performance. The first thing that came to mind for me in this situation was how we can work smarter and not harder. With staff involvement, we re-evaluated our work flow and redefined some of the roles of nurses in our department for better utilization of time and nursing skills. The change was embraced and staff engagement in the new work flows have been
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
She also had ovarian cancer, was on heparin, and was waiting for surgery to be scheduled. I displayed professionalism by not sharing personal patient information with anyone outside of her health care team. This patient was a nurse in her previous career, ands he was very educated on her disease process. I did take notes during my time with her, but all notes I wrote I shredded before leaving the floor for the day. There was also respect for my patient shown on my part by giving her rest time when she stated she was
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
Nurses serve a fundamental role in providing excellent health care (Gerard, Owens & Oliver, 2016; Gupta, Agarwal & Khatri, 2016; Moneke & Umeh, 2013; Van Bogaert, van Heusden, Timmermans, & Franck, 2014). However, due to extended work hours, unsupportive managers, and unworkable patient loads, which are all part of the portrayal today’s nurses (Milazzo, 2014) has shown to have an impact on nurse outcomes, quality care, and patient safety (Van Bogaert, Timmermans, Weeks, van Heusden, Wouters & Franck, 2014). With consideration in the retention of nurses, nursing leaders must acknowledge staff’s work satisfaction as an important aspect in preserving the nursing workforce. Hence, a reduced workforce can ultimately have a significant impact
Job dissatisfaction is four times higher for nurses than the average rate for all workers in the United States, and one in five nurses report that they intend to quit their jobs within a year. (Martin, 2015) The main reason for this job dissatisfaction is that nurse staffing is simply insufficient in almost all healthcare facilities. Inadequate nurse staffing is when the number of patients in a healthcare facility is far higher than the number of nurses, and nurses are not able to provide quality care. This has a negative effect on not only the nurses, but the patients as well. Inadequate nurse staffing leads to an increase in adverse patient events and patient mortality rates that could be avoided with an adequate amount of nurse
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...
This event was the first major clinical event where from the initial observation something serious could have occurred due to the bleeding and the fall, in which I was directly involved. I was panicked initially but knew what action to take so a hit the staff assist button. What stood out to me is how quickly everyone fell into their roll and cooperated as if rehearsed, which through their experience it was. I feel that this was a normal situation requiring the rapid action of multiple nurses that demonstrates how one person will have to take control of a situation and direct everyone so no one is doing the same task or assuming other people are doing something important. Like how in an emergency you need to directly point out someone to call
The literature review concludes that there are a plethora of factors relating to nurse burnout in correlation to nurse to patient ratio. Nurse to patient ratio is a serious issue that needs to be addressed in the nursing community. States nationwide and countries around the world need to make staffing guidelines that are mandated and enforced. Many of the factors that can affect nurse burnout are staffing guidelines (nurse to patient ratio), mandated shifts, overtime, and many more. Through all of the different articles and research some common themes concluded that the quality of patient care decreased when nurses had more patients than they could handle, and that patient satisfaction also decreased (Gordon, Buchanan,
According to Ritter (2010, p. 28), Unhealthy work environment found personnel having characteristics such as, abusive behavior, disrespect, and lack of leadership, only to mention a few traits. This was certainly demonstrated in this unit that day. I was only too happy to have walked into the unit that day, if not only to assist the nurse but, reassure and provide care to the patients who were subjected to the animosity and turmoil in the unit. I don’t believe a mandatory staff ratio in this case would have helped but, I think having a time frame on when the nurse could safely receive her patients and time to settle each one would be beneficial. The unit needs a lot of work in collaboration and teamwork. I agree with the statement in the American Association of Critical Care Nurse (AACN, 2005) in that it is important to have methods in place for improvements in working relationships, whether it is nurse to nurse or nurse to physician. Finally, the knowledge and abilities of each professional are respected when true collaboration exists and as a result, the goal for providing safe, quality care for patients is attainable. After all, our ultimate responsibility is to our patients. I think we missed