Alexandra Robbins Analysis

State-mandated nurse-to-patient ratios remains a controversial topic in healthcare. Sufficient nurse staffing is key to ensure adequate patient care, while scarce staffing effects patients’ safety and puts nurses at risk for burnout. Determining nurse-to-patient ratios in nursing facilities remains a challenge for the nursing profession. There are many factors to consider when determining staffing methods, such as cost, nurses’ satisfaction, patient outcomes and safety. Mandating ratios is one attempt at ensuring nurses’ workloads do not exceed what is needed for adequate patient care and safety. Throughout this paper, I will explore both the pros and cons of mandated nurse-to-patient ratios in order to resolve the question, does nurse to

Due to hospital care reaching an all-time high in America, we need nurses now more than ever before. Currently in America, we have an issue with nurses having too many paperwork to fill out. In the article “We Need More Nurses” by Alexandra Robbins argues we need more nurses in the hospital. Nursing shortage has been a common issue throughout the world. Because of this issue others are being affected in many different ways. This issue is not only affecting the hospital, but also the patients. In the article “When Hospital Paperwork Crowds Out Hospital Care” by Theresa Brown argues that nurses have too much paperwork to fill out about their patients. Having too many paperwork takes away from the nurses getting involved with their patients. In my opinion, neither of the arguments are valid because they lacks supporting details .Even though Robbins and Brown are passion about their topic, they both did a great job using pathos

Large patient loads combined with a stressful work environment affects nurses’ abilities to provide quality healthcare. Patient safety should never be compromised. It is our responsibility to learn from research and improve our current nurse staffing ratios. Nurse staffing is key and affects all other outcomes. Without nurses administering the right treatment at the right time to the right patients, all other healthcare interventions are not effective. Improvement of nurse staffing levels will improve the quality of care our patients receive.

Nurses fatigue is growing problem nurse face each day in the healthcare environment, and he can be caused by long hours, sleep deprivation, and possibly by accepting extra assignments can be dangerous for both nurses and patient. These inadequacies can result in major implications for the health and safety of registered nurses and can compromise patient care which can lead to fatalities. (American Nurses Association, 2014). In my experience, being fatigued from working much 12-hour shifts consecutively was very difficult as I felt extremely tired, resulting in lack of focus, missing important details during the handing over the process with impaired cognitive functioning. This I found was detrimental to the patients and myself as it impedes quality and has a deleterious effect on patient safety.

Nurses are critical for promoting health in the society. The profession is highly flexible, since they specialize in diverse operations in the medical field. Registered nurses, for instance, are responsible for the administration of medicine and inoculations to patients (American Nurses ' Association, 2000). Additionally, these professionals observe, record, and enlighten doctors of any changes in a patient’s health. Nurses interpret and evaluate diagnostic examinations to determine an individual’s condition, as well as making the necessary adjustments in patient treatment plans on their health progress. In collaboration with other medical personnel, nurses engage in the development and enactment of patient care plans. Furthermore, they provide education to families and groups on various health issues such as disease prevention, among others.

Nursing shortages are unmeasureble, and they may be defined as professional capacity standards from an economical view. Buchan and Aiken (2008) stated that the nurses shortage problems may be due to the nurses that not willing to work as a nurse under the current conditions in working environment. A real shortage is circumstances where experienced people are not available for a certain vacancies due to some reasons (Wildschut&Mqolozana, 2008). A news article written by Salma Khalikin in Straits Times stated that according to current situation Singapore may not be able to create enough nurses for upcoming years. The impact of nurses shortage may causes increase work load for nurses which subsequently may increase the risk for nurses made errors in clinical, the risk of increase hospital acquired infections which cause by viral, bacterial, and fungal pathogens. More over the impact of shortage of nurses may also increase death rate, and also increase the risk of occupation injuries and exposure in working environments. As a outcome of the volume and acuity of patients, things are being missed

With a nurse shortage, patients are not getting the best quality care they should be getting. Archive stated that hospital nurse staffing, is a matter of major concern because of the effects it can have on patient safety and the quality care patients deserve. Nursing-sensitive outcomes is an indicator of the quality care and can be defined as variable patient or family caregiver state, condition, or perception responsive to nursing intervention. Some unfortunate patient outcomes potentially sensitive to nursing care are shock, urinary tract infections (UTIs), pneumonia, longer hospital stays, upper gastrointestinal bleeding, failure to rescue, and 30-day mortality. Research has focused on negative rather than the positive patient outcomes for the simple reason that adverse outcomes are more likely to be documented in the medical record. This is important evidence because it gives us conditions and results of what can happen if patients get lower quality care. Patients’ are not having enough time getting checked up by a nurse, and nurses would miss some diagnostics. Patients are getting sick because of the poor care they are receiving from nurses. The care patients can get is affected by a nurse shortage, “Nursing workload definitely affects the time that a nurse can allot to various tasks. Under a heavy workload, nurses may not have sufficient time to perform tasks that can have a direct effect on patient safety. A heavy nursing workload can influence the care provider’s decision to perform various procedures. A heavy workload may also reduce the time spent by nurses collaborating and communicating with physicians, therefore affecting the quality of nurse-physician collaboration” (ncbi). This is important because it tells us that nurses wouldn 't have enough time to perform tasks that can affect the patients’ care. If nurses are being overworked because of a nurse shortage, then patients’ would not have the best quality care they would need, which can be a

Decision makers will need to determine how to best utilize nurses, technicians, and other professionals to close the gap in providing services to patients. Nurses require less time to train, are less expensive to train, cost less to employ, and can increase the efficiency and productivity of physicians who provide care to patients. The increase in the use of health care services as well as the increase in the number of venues where health care is provided has also increased the job opportunities for nurses and other members of the healthcare workforce. The demand for primary care services has stimulated the training of nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and certified nurse

According to Stanton, low-staffed hospitals resulted in higher incidences of poor patient outcomes. Such as, UTIs, pneumonia, and fall. However, poor patient outcomes not only result from short-staffed nurses, but can also result from inadequate nursing assistants as well. NAs play a great role in providing basic daily care of patients. These professionals are very crucial in the healthcare industry but sadly, there are NA shortages. According to Piotrowdki (2010) there is great NA shortage in nursing homes as well as in hospitals across many regions. This shortage eventually leads to fewer resources for nurses to rely on when providing basic patient

The clinical question for my article was based on quantitative search, nurse to patient ratios must increase to improve safety and the clinical question that is identified in the quantitative research article is how to increase nurses to patient ratio in order to improve patient safety and quality of life especially in older adult patients.

The understaffing of nurses is an issue that has rapidly affected the nursing field of both Australia (locally) and the rest of the world (globally) (Oulton, 2006). The issue has resulted in nurses not being able to successfully achieve our duty and work requirements, comprising the needs and safety of the patients in our care (Twigg, Duffield, Thompson & Rapley, 2010). Due to the issue hindering the role and outcomes of the nurse’s work, nurses cannot successfully contribute to the common good and human dignity (Donley, Grandjean, Jairath, & McMullen, 2006), therefore to address the limited amount of these throughout the issue of understaffing, possible solutions should be explored using advocacy and community engagement.

Nurses are trained and educated to provide critical care, and minimal care to their patients. However, no one with any amount of education or training can provide safe and effective care when given 10-30 patients per one nurse. Hospital nurses that work on critical care units and medical units, can have up to 10-30 patients, if understaffed. In this situation, nurses are more prone to medical errors in charting, giving wrong medication to patients, and unintentional neglect. It is impractical for mandated nurse to patient ratio laws to not be put in place for safe and effective patient care.

Nurses play an essential role in the healthcare industry. The nurse workforce is made up of licensed nurses: registered nurses (RNs), licensed vocational nurses (LVNs) and licensed practical nurses (LPNs), along with nurse aides. Registered nurses are responsible for assessments of patients’ needs, development of care plans, medication administration, and treatments, while licensed vocational nurses perform specific care under the delegation of the registered nurses and supervisions. Nursing aides perform activities of daily living (unskilled attention) to the patient. Adequate nursing staffing is essential to both patient care and outcomes, also to the retention of nurses while inadequate staffing creates problems for both the patients and

Short staffing is an ongoing problem in acute hospital settings. There is either inadequate licensed nurses on the floor or nurses are extremely exhausted from recent shifts where they were assigned high patient ratios. An increase in more patients negatively affects the health of nurses causing extreme fatigue and interrupted sleeping patterns (Garnett, 2008). During an interview with a registered nurse at the Guam Memorial Hospital, the nurse described a problem with short staffing as a “vicious cycle”. He explained a scenario where Nurse A calls in sick then eventually Nurse B has no other choice but to cover the hours for Nurse A. Chances are once Nurse A recovers, Nurse B ends up calling in sick due to nurse burnout (anonymous, September

I do agree with you that staffing level directly affect the care outcome. A study comparing mortality rate in short staffed and fully staffed unit concluded that patient in the short staffed units had a 6% higher rate of mortality (AACN, 2014). Federal and state funding on nursing education will result to increased enrollment but there is need to address retention to achieve a sustained staffing level. Good post.