...Nurse Staffing Models, Nursing Hours, and Patient Safety Outcomes Problem: The lower the proportion of professional nursing staff employed on a unit, the higher the number of medication errors and wound infections. The less experienced the nurse, the higher the number of wound infections. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of different nurse staffing models on costs and the patient outcomes of patient falls, medication errors, wound infections, and urinary tract infections. Hypothesis: Limited research has been conducted examining the effect of nurse staffing models on costs and patient outcomes. Evaluate the credibility and validity: A descriptive correlational study was conducted in all of the 19 teaching...
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...Lowering Nurse Staffing Ratios The growing need of more nurses in hospitals is becoming an issue in hospitals all over America. The patient’s safety is being put at risk due to the number of nurse to patient ratios (Welton 1). A low nurse to patient ratio will cause a lack of care for the patients. Nurses will have to take on more patients then they are capable of which will affect the health of the patient and the nurse. John M. Welton, an RN (Registered Nurse), said that “the safety of patients is directly related to the size and experience of the nursing staff” (Welton 1). A high nurse to patient ratio can be on the costly side for the hospitals. “Hospitals will not receive any additional revenue for providing more patient care”...
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...Better Registered Nurse staffing levels have been shown to improve patient outcomes. Currently, there is no federal guideline to help determine the appropriate staffing levels needed for optimal patient outcomes. Significant patient outcomes include readmissions to the hospital after discharge and falls occurring during hospitalization. Staffing requirements vary from hospital to hospital based on whatever design the hospital uses to determine staffing levels. The only current federal regulation to guide nurse staffing states that “The nursing service must have adequate numbers of licensed registered nurses, licensed practical (vocational) nurses, and other personnel to provide nursing care to all patients as needed”(Legal Information Institute,...
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...It is my utmost belief that safe nurse staffing is a top health policy of our country right now. I concur with the American Nurses Association’s (2017) proposition that somewhere along the line of health care staffing, there is a failure to associate patient health outcomes and nurse staffing. I also agree with ANA it is vital to have a nurse-driven staffing plan specific to the needs of the designated work areas by establishing an upwardly adjustable and flexible staffing that accounts for changes such as admissions, discharges, and patient acuity. As a medical-surgical/telemetry nurse, I experience inadequate staffing almost all the time. I love being a nurse but that does not mean I would not speak up for patients’ safety. It is protecting not just our patients but also advocating for ourselves as nurses....
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...Nursing Legislation Bill Name and Number: The Registered Nurse Safe Staffing Act (H.R. 2083/S. 1132) Focus and Goals: The focus of this bill is to create safe staffing for nurses and patients. The bill requires all hospitals that participate with Medicare to have adequate licensed nurses. The goal of the bill is safe staffing for patients and nursing with a patient to nurse ratio that will result in better care. Provisions: Increasing RN’s is a cost saving venture that is achieved by reducing extra hospital stays and readmissions. Additionally, reducing medical errors is important as Medicare and Medicaid is denying payments for hospital-acquired illnesses. Although only seven states have enacted this legislation, my unit in NC has...
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...Due to the problem of inadequate nurse staffing levels it has lead hospitals to experience complications in their budgets. This problem all begins with hospitals not making any money because there aren’t enough patients to care for. In the article “How The Nursing Shortage Affects Patient Care and Healthcare Services” provided by Nurse Grid explains how new registered nurse graduates find it difficult to get a full time nursing job due to hospital's budget restrictions. These restrictions don’t allow hospitals to meet their full potential because it prevents them from expanding any type of research that is being done by physicians, considering medical research requires lots of money. Again in Jim Gogek’s article “Inadequate Staffing Harms Quality...
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...Can Adequate Nurse Staffing Improve Patient Outcomes? Nursing is more than caring for the sick and injured. It is a twenty-four hour inpatient monitoring system. It is well known that nurses spend significantly more time caring for and looking after patients than any other profession. They routinely monitor and report changing patient conditions around the clock that aid physicians in modifying and updating treatment plans to improve health and prevent complications. The level of safety of hospitalized patients and the degree of quality care that they receive has more to do than fixed nurse-to-patient ratios. It has been well established in the literature that when nursing workload increase to unmanageable levels; weather it be from the addition of patients, increases in acuity and/or care complexity, or from high levels of fluctuation in patient turnover, that nurses ability to perform patient surveillance is disordered, putting patients in undue risk (Needleman, et. al, 2011). Furthermore, excessive workloads contribute to burnout and dissatisfaction leading to nurse attrition that further compounds to the staffing problem. Hospitals need to be held accountable for providing safer nurse staffing levels. Payers and purchasers of care should demand compliance, but should also stimulate better quality and patient safety by providing financial incentives. In addition, a more comprehensive, proactive team approach to nurse staffing can help keep patients safer...
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...Safe Nurse Staffing and Patient Outcomes Regina Valenzuela Northern Arizona University Abstract Proper nurse staffing has been a debate since the modernization of nursing for many years. This paper examines the results of five researched based articles on the effects of nurse staffing and the outcomes of patient care within a hospital setting. The articles do vary in their methods of gathering information. One study used organizational data from 799 facilitates in eleven states to examine the outcomes of care from the type of nursing care received (Needleman, Buerhaus, Mattke, Stewart, & Zelevinsky, 2002). Another study examined the outcomes of care of intensive care patients in 65 hospitals in the United Kingdom (West, Barron, Harrison, Rafferty, Rowan, & Sanderson, 2014). A third study that was reviewed used cross-sectional patient outcome data from a a nationwide project that provided information from 77 Level I and Level II trauma centers (Glance, Dick, Osler, Mukamel, Li., & Stone, 2012). The fourth article was a synthesis of research publications that examined the outcomes and mortality of patients based on specific determinants (Tourangeau, Cranley, & Jeffs, 2006). The fifth article is an investigative report on nurse to patient ratios and nurse work hours associated to patient care (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2007). The fifth article was also prepared for the United States Department of Health and Human Services based on a survey...
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...Hospital Nurse Staffing and Patient Mortality, Nurse Burnout, and Job Dissatisfaction Grand Canyon University: NRS-433V 06-04-2016 PROBLEM STATEMENT: The broad research problem leading to this study is the belief that nursing shortage in facilities leads to patient safety issues. The review of available literature on this topic shows strong evidence that lower nurse staffing levels in hospitals are associated with worse patient outcomes. Some of these outcomes include very high patient to nurse ratio, fatigue for nurses leading to costly medical mistakes, social environment, nursing staff attrition from the most affected facilities. The study specifically attempts to find a way to understand how nurse staffing levels has an impact on patient outcomes and nurse retention in hospital practice. Purpose d Research Questions: With one of the most critical steps being the determination of the problem that will be studied in the research process. (Nieswiadomy, 2008, p.45). Linda H. Aiken et al states the research question as 1. Determine the association between patient-to-nurse ratio and patient mortality 2. Determine the association between patient-to-nurse ratio and failure-to-rescue (deaths following complications) among surgical patients 3. Determine the association between patient-to-nurse ratio and nurse retention/attrition. 4. Determine the association between patient-to-nurse and the facts that contributed to the stress that lead to nurse burnout ...
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...Overloading nurses with patient in one shift is not good because it will lead to safety errors, exhaustion and miscommunication. Nuances are low acuity, short staff, and insufficient funds. Every day we hear about medication error stories that lead to patient life loss or disability , in best cases no harm done. Yet one of the nurses that worked so hard that day made a mistake and gave the wrong medication to the wrong patient , or gave the wrong dose to the right patient. The policy to give drugs is to check for the five safety points. The right patient , the right time, the right drug, the right dose , the right rout. The it follows by the right documentation. Every nurse knows how to do her job , and those checks are run automatically in the mind of every nurse. But we are human and when a nurse is tired then the mind can’t do to much , so some times we tend to skip some checks due to urgent patient need , axhustion , tired , and there it goes a medication error, that would cause the patient his life and nurse her career. We live in a fast pace life, every thing need to be fast , the faster the patient get better that faster they leave and the faster we get another patient to make more money that is how facilities do their job. All about more patient to get...
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...CHAPTER ONE: STAFFING MODELS AND STRATEGY Learning Objectives * Define staffing and consider how, in the big picture, staffing decisions matter * Review the five staffing models presented, and consider the advantages and disadvantages of each * Consider the staffing system components and how they fit into the plan for the book * Understand the staffing organization model and how its various components fit into the plan for the book * Appreciate the importance of staffing strategy, and review the 13 decisions that staffing strategy requires * Realize the importance of ethics in staffing, and learn how ethical staffing practice is established Introduction * Staffing is a critical organizational function concerned with the acquisition, deployment, and retention of the organization’s workforce. * Staffing is arguably the most critical function underlying organizational effectiveness, because “the people make the place,” because labor costs are often the highest organizational cost, and because poor hiring decisions are not easily undone. * Five models * The first model shows how projected workforce head-count requirements and availabilities are compared to determine the appropriate staffing level for the organization. * The next two models illustrate staffing quality, which refers to matching a person’s qualifications with the requirements of the job or organization. * The person/job match model is the foundation of all staffing...
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...Case Study 2 Jasmine Howard Liberty University Case Study 2 Part I Kaiser Manufacturing Company has been in business for over 50 years using the standard method staffing. Hiring its own employees, training, managing and all human resources issues were all handled in house. The option is now arising to use an employment agency, FSS, to relieve the burden from Kaiser Manufacturing Company. It is important to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of this option before changing the entire business plan Kaiser Manufacturing Company has worked so long. The advantages include, flexible staff numbers, as of current Kaiser Manufacturing Company has a workforce of 725 production workers, 30 clerical workers, 32 engineer and professional workers, and 41 managers, who are all full time employees. This number was a perfect fit for the company when the sales were at an all-time high but as of 2008 the sales have stayed at 175 million annually. Cutting back on the cost of the workforce would be very beneficial to Kaiser Manufacturing Company’s bottom line. If and when sales are to peak or employees call out it is great to have the option to bring in more employees or decrease the number of employees staffed when necessary without adding more work to management. A second advantage would be the caliber of workers available to the company. Though the current workers are adequate to keep the business running, it may be advantageous to bring in someone temporary to help understand why...
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...• What is the effect of fringe benefits on nurse staffing? According to the Internal Revenue Service’s definition, “A fringe benefit is a form of pay for the performance of services” (Internal Revenue Service, 2014). Such benefit could range from insurance coverage, tuition reimbursement to a retirement contributions. As some positions are difficult to fill due to its nature, employers often uses benefits to encourage nurses to take on such shifts. For instance, nurses who are working night shift or weekends tend to receive increased pays. According to MecMenamin, there has been a recent change in the employer’s perception on fringe benefits: Although the wage increase trend for hospital staff RNs has been decelerating, the trend for their...
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...TITLE: NURSE STAFFING AND QUALITY SERVICE NAME: COURSE: INSTITUTION: DATE: INTRODUCTION Nurse staffing is the placement of qualified nurses in health facilities so that they can work together with doctors to deliver quality health services to the community. Hospitals with high nurse staffing levels are much likely to have good patient outcomes and satisfaction no matter the patient turn out. Nurse staffing focuses on recruiting and keeping qualified nurses in a hospital so that handling of patients becomes easy and focused on quality service to the public. It enhances the identification of individuals that are most likely to work in certain areas of the health sector and also helps to enhance the diversity of nurses by matching candidates and the communities they will provide health services to. Salary and benefits are the factors that motivate qualified nurses to work consistently in a health facility because with good remuneration, nurses are able to further their education which further improves their profession and level of knowledge in their field of operation (Sales, A. 2015). Low nurse staffing results in higher risks of disease infections particularly the transmittable diseases due to lack of the urgency of treatment because the health facility has less nurses with a high number of patients. Nurse shortage is caused by the lack of enough registered nurses that are allowed to practice, low salary offers, poor training that leads to low confidence of practice, lack of...
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...External Conditions and Associated Risk Factors Sarah A.T. Harris HiNursing Hawaii Nursing LLC (HiNursing) is a nurse staffing company that operates under HiHealthcare, which is a subsidiary of The Hawaii Group family (HiGroup). HiNursing is a legacy of Scott Craun, RN and the company he started, Island Nurses, which was acquired by HiGroup on December 1st, 2012 (Silverstein, 2012). The company provides registered nurses (RN), certified nursing assistants (CNA), and medical assistant (MA) positions statewide to places like hospitals, clinics, assisted living facilities, hotels, schools, insurance companies, and correctional facilities (HiHealthCare, 2014). A staff of six people currently work underneath the umbrella of HiHeathcare and oversee HiNursing and HiHomecare, its sister company. HiNursing currently has a highly dynamic compliment of approximately 25 nurses that they use to staff various facilities throughout Hawaii. When the company was first acquired in 2012 they had 73 nurses available for placement around the islands (Silverstein, 2012). The company saw approximately $1 million in revenue for 2012 and an estimated $2 million in 2013 (Silverstein, 2012). None of the companies under HiGroup is publicly traded. HiNursing is still trying to build a brand name but they are committed to fulfilling the last wishes of Scott Craun who established a fund that annually sends Multiple Myeloma cancer patients to the mainland for treatment. Every year HiNursing participates...
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