...hospital and clinical staffing. Proposed nurse to patient staffing ratios has become a huge discussion in the healthcare field. It has developed a huge concern that patients and nursing staffs are being harmed related to the inadequate nurse to patient ratio staff. This issue alone has caused an increase in severity of illness, fatigue, hospital stay, and harm to patients. With the increase in complexity of care per patients, nurses grow weary thus increase the negative impact of the inability to improve the quality of hospitalization outcomes for the patients. It is prominent that we identify and maintain the appropriate number of the nurse to patient staffing ratio, as it is critical key of delivering the optimal quality patient care. In the pass few years and even up until now, there has been a massive growth in need for more registered nurses in hospitals and clinics due to the rising acuity of patients and shorter lengths of stay. More and more patients appear looking for healthcare assistance. The safety and quality of the care patients are looking for are becoming difficult to find as registered nurses grow exhausted and drained out of energy. Inpatient working conditions has weakened in various facilities, as hospitals cannot fulfill the necessity of the rising demand for nurses. As these scenarios repeatedly appear in multiple facilities, patients and nurses are looking for ways to motivate state legislature to regulate adequate nurse staffing in hospitals and clinics...
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...Changing the staffing matrix to staffing based on acuity and reducing the unit department’s acquired pressure ulcers will greatly contribute to patient safety and patient/nurse satisfaction. Goal 1: Leadership Development A major problem of the health care system today is the heavy workload of the hospital nurses. Nurses are experiencing job dissatisfaction and burnout due to three main reasons: increased patient acuity, inadequate nursing staff, and higher workload. Staffing by patient acuity is safer for patients. It decreases the heavy patient workload and eliminate overtime. It will also increase the nurse’s job satisfaction and create better patient outcome. The article “Safe Staffing Saves Lives” mentions, “insufficient nurse staffing has been linked with poor patient outcomes, longer hospital stays and increased risk of patient mortality” (2011, p. 16, para. 2). The article summarized how the American Nurses Association (ANA) introduced the formal legislation that required “hospitals that participate in Medicare to form committees that compromised of at least 55% direct care nurses” (“Safe Staffing Saves Lives,” 2011, p. 16, para. 2). Now the ANA has proposed a guideline to solve the nurse-staffing crisis. The ANA’s guideline requires hospitals to set nurse staffing based on five changing condition: patient acuity, patient numbers, nurse skills and experience, support staff, and technology. The guideline promotes staffing by patient acuity, which leads to staffing flexibility...
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...My Thoughts Advocating for mandated nurse-to-patient ratios is an easy choice because it saves lives. The nursing profession is founded on caring for others, providing and promoting the health, safety, and well-being of those in need and the best way to do that is with safe nurse-to-patient staffing. This mandate is a win-win for patients, staff, and facility. Patients get best care, staff has job satisfaction, and facility gets decrease costs from benefits that better health care and staff satisfaction will produce. References Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/news/entry/state-mandated. Clark, C. (2010, January). Does Mandating Nurse-Patient Ratios Improve Care? Health Leaders Media. Fraughton, H. (2014). Factsheet: Nurse to Patient Ratios are Cost-Effective. Retrieved from http://nsgeu.ca/factsheet-nurse-to-patient-ratios-are-cost. Gordon, S. (2009). Safety in Numbers Nurse-to-Patient Ratios and the Future of Health Care. Retrieved from http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100337250 Rosseter, R. (2014). Nursing Shortage. Retrieved from http://www.aacn.nche.edu/media-relations/fact-sheets/nursing-shortage Shekelle, P. G. (2002). Effect of Nurse-to-Patient Staffing Ratios on Patient Morbidity and Mortality. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0055923/ State Staffing Plans and Ratios. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/Poli...
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...Nurse Staffing Plans & Ratios Background Identifying and maintaining the appropriate number and mix of nursing staff is critical to the delivery of quality patient care. Numerous studies reveal an association between higher levels of experienced RN staffing land lower rates of adverse patient outcomes. 42 Code of Federal Regulations (42CFR 482.23(b) requires hospitals certified to participate in Medicare to "have adequate numbers of licensed registered nurses, licensed practical (vocational) nurses, and other personnel to provide nursing care to all patients as needed". With such nebulous language and the continued failure of Congress to enact a quality nursing care staffing act to date, it is left to the states to ensure that staffing is appropriate to meet patients' needs safely. Massive reductions in nursing budgets have resulted in fewer nurses working longer hours, while caring for sicker patients. In a survey of almost 220,000 RNs from 13,000 nursing units in over 550 hospitals and a response rate of 70%, nurses reported to ANA that: 54% of nurses in adult medical units and emergency rooms do not have sufficient time with patients; overtime has increased during the past year with 43% of all RNs working extra hours because the unit is short staffed or busy; and that inadequate staffing affected unit admissions, transfers and discharges more than 20% of the time. • The benefits of increased RN staffing have been demonstrated. Each additional patient care RN employed...
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...Explanation of the facts, history, legislative regulations, controversial aspects and opinions Explanation of the facts, history, legislative regulations, controversial aspects and opinions MANDATED NURSE PATIENT RATIO How does it affect you and your loved ones? Nurse patient ratio for safe care means when the staffing between the nurses and the patients are safe to provide the care patients need to get well in the hospital or nursing homes. Why is this important? Several studies have shown that patients get well faster and safer when they receive more nursing care. Even more importantly according to Linda Aiken study (2003), mortality rates and staffing ratios are closely tied. Each additional patient per RN after four patients, chances of dying in the hospital is increased by 7%.Patient on a surgical unit with patient –RN ratio of 8:1 were 31% more likely to die within 30days than those on surgical units with ratios of 4:1.Studies have shown that more infections like UTI, pneumonia, shock or cardiac arrest increases when patients receive fewer hours of nursing care. Medication errors and unsafe hand washing techniques were found more in increased patient workloads. Unsafe staffing gave more job dissatisfaction, job burnout and more nurses quit or drove nurses away from nursing. This increased mandatory overtime and increased nurse...
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...AFT Task 4: Periodic Performance Review Accreditation Audit Case Introduction The accreditation process is designed to assist healthcare establishment to identify and enhance the patient’s safety and the quality of service delivery. This paper presents a review of the readiness Nightingale Community Hospital for accreditation audit. The paper comprises of a periodic performance review of the establishment. The review has focus of several priority areas. These areas include; assessment and care; quality improvement; patient safety, and staffing effectiveness. Trend within the hospital indicates the Nightingale has made significant progress towards fulfilling the standards of the Joint Review Commission. However, the trends in staffing effectiveness are limiting the organization’s compliance. Periodic Performance Review (PPR) The PPR is based on data collected in the Joint Commission Survey. The survey utilized the priority focus methodology to evaluate the compliance of Nightingale Community Hospital. The priority focus process is a methodology that makes use of data to establish priority areas for reviewing compliance. This process has utilized of both external and internal data to evaluate the compliance of Nightingale Community Hospital. This methodology identified several priority areas. These include; assessment and care services; quality improvement activities, and patient safety. This paper evaluates Nightingale’s compliance in these three priority areas. Compliance...
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...chosen is Save the Children. The sector which this charity operates in is the children’s charities. Save the Children is the world’s independent children’s charity. The purpose of this charity is to change lives for children on the long term. They focus on achieving four core rights for children. These include: 1) Health 2) Freedom from hunger 3) Education 4) Protection Save the Children intends to inspire people around the world to take action to save children’s lives, create movement for change and to give children the voice they all deserve. This charity disagrees with the fact that millions of children’s do not have proper healthcare, education, food and protection. They aim to get every child’s their rights and determine to make a substantial change. Their mission is to fights for children’s rights; deliver immediate and lasting improvement to children’s lives worldwide. Save the Children website states they “We share our vision and mission with our partners in the International Save the Children Alliance.” Their future vision which they look forward to is to respect and value each children, listen to children’s and give them hope and opportunity. The aim for the group is to make a large sum of money for the charity, to develop new skills when setting up this charity and also to hopefully change the world. These are the main aims for the group members whilst doing this fund raising activity. The reason why this event wants to support the Save the Children...
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...Politics, Legislation, and Implications to Patient Care Abstract There are constant changes to laws and legislation regarding patient care and safety. The purpose of this report is to inform the reader of recent and upcoming changes to legislation that may affect nursing care of patients. Research by L. Aiken, et al. and A. Tourangeau, support the need for higher education of registered nurses. Their research proves that patient outcomes are improved when registered nurses carry a bachelor’s degree in nursing. Research conducted by J. Needleman, et al., concluded that reducing the nurse-patient ratio resulted in the patient being at less risk for developing hospital-acquired illnesses as well as a reduced risk of inpatient mortality. The reader will also be informed about the Joint Commission’s protocol for reducing the occurrence of wrong-patient, wrong-site, and wrong-procedure during surgical procedures. Politics, Legislation, and Implications to Patient Care As the American population ages, healthcare and its resources are in greater demand. As the demand for healthcare increases, the topic of patient safety has become increasingly important. Laws and legislation regarding patient care are changing almost constantly to maintain patient safety while still providing comprehensive patient care. This report will focus on informing the reader of recent and upcoming legislation regarding patient care, what has brought those changes about, and the effects it can...
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...Medical errors are a major cause for concern in the medical field. The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention defines a medication error as ‘any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the health-care professional, patient or consumer (Unver, Tastan, & Akbayrak. 2012). Medical errors can occur because of several reasons. This paper will cover just three ways medical errors can be made: by misinterpretation/communication, overworking/unsafe staffing ratios, and working under the influence. When medical errors are made, blame may not always be placed on the nurse alone. A medical error does not have to be made in...
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...Logistics, and market of Final Goods. Internet Staffing Methods vs. Traditional Methods HRM 594 Strategic Staffing Keller Graduate School (DeVry University) September 17th, 2013 We live in an era of technology that is changing the way the traditional workplace operates. Within the last two decades, dependence on technology as a means of conducting business has caused human resources to increase its recruiting functions from utilizing print media to posting vacancies on the Internet to attract prospects. Such practice improves the time it takes to hire a candidate, eliminates steps in screening and overall saves on costs that traditional method drained from a company’s budget. From the job seeker’s perspective, the hiring process is greatly enhanced. “In our fast moving society we no longer want to wait for Thursday's paper, which contains the appointments section, nor do we want to post our CVs in the mail the following day, then wait for weeks for a reply” (Online Recruitment Marketing Counsel, 2003). The use of the Internet means the entire world has access to a vast number of jobs. With the speed and capabilities of such methods, applications are instant and allow for submissions day or night. Using the Internet is not limited to posting the job and searching for candidates, it can also market the organization to highly desired candidates using social media and be the tool used for interviewing to save on costs. These functions can cascade into...
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...Abstract Patient safety and Medical errors are one of the major concerns of healthcare industry. Our group decided to throw more light on the present situation of this issue. In this paper we have given a clear picture about the types of errors, how these errors occur and towards the end we have discussed on how to prevent these errors. The implementation of the actions to prevent errors discussed in our paper will help in improving and reducing them. In doing so, we can be leaders in an effort to provide the best care possible to all Americans. We have also discussed about the importance of patient safety. Reducing errors and improving how we respond to error is but a subset of the all-important issue of quality of care. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………... 5 Regulatory Authority……………………………………………………………………. 5 Patient safety ……………………………………………………………………………. 6 Medical Errors ………………………………………………………………………….. 7 Why medical errors occur? .............................................................................................. 8 When errors are not reported ………………………………………………………….. 8 Types of Medical Errors ………………………………………………………………… 9 Sentinel Events ……………………………………………………………………….. 9 Diagnosis or evaluation ………………………………………………………………. 9 Medical decision-making …………………………………………………………… 10 Treatment and medication …………………………………….…………………..… 10 Dispensing ……………………………………………………………………………11 Procedural complications...
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...agencies, would take extreme caution in their application and use. Often this is not the case. Contemporary radiation therapy offers a good example of society failing to anticipate and control the negative impacts of a technology powerful enough to kill people. For individuals and their families suffering through a battle with cancer, technical advancements in radiation treatment represent hope and a chance for a healthy, cancer-free life. But when these highly complex machines used to treat cancers go awry or when nedical technicians and doctors fail to follow proper safety procedures, it results in suffering worse than ailments radication aims to cure. A litany of horror stories underscore the consequences when hospitals fail to provide safe radiation treatment to cancer patients. In many of these horror stories, poor software design, poor human-machine interfaces and lack of proper training are root causes of the problems. The deaths of Scott Jerome-Parks and Alexandra Jn-Charles, both patients of New york City hospitals, are prime examples of radiation treatments going awry. Jerome-Parks worked in southern Manhattan near the side of the World Trade Center attacks, and suspected that the tongue cancer he developed later was related to toxic dust that he came in contact with after the attacks. His prodnosis was uncertain at first, but he had some reason to be optimistic, given the quality of the treatment provided by state-of-the-art linear accelerators at St.Vincent’s hospital...
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...agencies, would take extreme caution in their application and use. Often this is not the case. Contemporary radiation therapy offers a good example of society failing to anticipate and control the negative impacts of a technology powerful enough to kill people. For individuals and their families suffering through a battle with cancer, technical advancements in radiation treatment represent hope and a chance for a healthy, cancer-free life. But when these highly complex machines used to treat cancers go awry or when medical technicians and doctors fail to follow proper safety procedures, it results in suffering worse than the ailments radiation aims to cure. A litany of horror stories underscores the consequences when hospitals fail to provide safe radiation treatment to cancer patients. In many of these horror stories, poor software design, poor human-machine interfaces, and lack of proper training are root causes of the problems. The deaths of Scott Jerome-Parks and Alexandra Jn-Charles, both patients of New York City hospitals, are prime examples of radiation treatments going awry. Jerome-Parks worked in southern Manhattan near the site of the World Trade Center attacks, and suspected that the tongue cancer he developed later was related to toxic dust that he came in contact with after the attacks. His prognosis was uncertain at first, but he had some reason to be optimistic, given the quality of the treatment provided by state-of-the-the-art linear accelerators at St. Vincent’s...
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...MEMORANDUM TO: The Human Resources Department of the Marion County Sheriff’s Department FROM: Kelly Powell-Duffner, Former Sheriff’s Deputy DATE: 01/08/2012 SUBJECT: High Turnover Rate within the Department and a Proposal to Correct this Issue Attached is my research as to why the turnover rate has risen so much over the last eighteen months within the Marion County Sheriff’s Department as well a proposal that could possibly prevent this trend from continuing. It has become apparent that there must be a problem within the department due to turnover rates rising despite the current economy downturn. When jobs are harder to come by and the unemployment rate is high one would think that movement in many fields would be at a minimum. Unfortunately, it has been shown to be the opposite in many law enforcement fields and job turnover is exploding for many reasons. Some of these reasons include poor morale, the ability to easily replace people due to the available unemployed workforce, ill treatment on the job, job politics, career dissatisfaction, the increase in prices for everyday items such as gas and groceries that require a higher paying job to afford and finally the workforce being more of child rearing ages and requiring jobs with better benefits to provide for their families. This research topic greatly attracted me due to my own personal experiences as a police officer. In my experiences as police officer, I encountered all of these issues and ultimately decided to...
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...CRJS450-IP2 Name Class Date Professor CRJS450-IP2 The vocational aspects of the prison are essential to ensuring the prison population is provided with the necessary skills to make positive changes in their lives instead of continuing to engage in criminal behavior. In order to provide the inmate with the necessary rehabilitative services and programs the prison will need to develop safety measures to limit the risk to the prison inmates as well as o the prison staff. Inmates should be proved with a secure location in which to engage in rehabilitative service and programs in order to ensure they can focus on making improvements in their life instead of worrying about their safety. Close security prisons typically are comprised of single cells and divided into cellblocks, which may be in one building or multiple buildings (NCDPS, 2012). This provides greater protection for the inmate and staff members. The cells and prison gates are controlled by guards that are in secure control station. In the closed prison the rehabilitative services should also be contained with only the inmates participating in the program as well as guards present at the program or services to ensure better safety measures. The programs and services should be closely monitored as well by guards in the secure control station. In order to ensure the safety of the inmate attending vocational programs and services inmates should only be allowed out of their cells to work or attend...
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