Ethical Issues In Nursing: Nurse-Patient Ratios

Unfortunately, there are many ways a patient can be injured or harmed while staying at a hospital. Even though there have been several attempts to make a hospital visit one hundred percent injury preventable, accidents and mistakes still happen. The three leading types of patient injuries are medication errors, patient falls, and pressure ulcers. However, if the entire health care team, such as: health care providers, pharmacists, nurses, etc, work together then hopefully the percentage of patient injury will decrease each year. (Berman, A. 2011)

Many theories exist in nursing today and are used as a guide to practice, and as well as providing a framework for nursing research. The purpose of theory in nursing is to provide an improvement in practice and positively to influence the health and wellness of persons, families and the community. In nursing, there should be a mutual relationship between theory and practice, practice providing the basis for nursing theory development where theory is validated in practice (McEwen, 2014). The problem of nurse fatigue continues to plague healthcare organizations worldwide because of long working hours, accepting extra assignments and sleep deprivation that can be dangerous for both nurse and patient.

Main Question Post: Discussion 1 The Effect of “To Err Is Human in Nursing Patients rely on health care professionals and institutional organizations for their safety, quality, and well-beings. Nurses are the frontline at the patient bedside, supporting the physician diagnosis and carry out arrays of medical orders for our patients. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report in 1999 titled: “To Err is Human” that revealed a significant amount of medical errors made in healthcare industries mutually conveyed and otherwise (Wakefield, 2008). Medical errors are projected to trigger more demise yearly than all other debilitating ailments combined.

Nurse staffing is a significant region of worry because it can place a strain on patient safety as well as quality of patient care. With cost effectiveness in mind, hospital administrations have elected to reduce nursing staffing ratios and substitute licensed nurses using cheaper unlicensed personnel. This increases uneasiness as the quality of care in hospitals might be undesirably reduced. The necessity to evaluate nurse staffing is essential.

NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES AND RISK FACTORS The most significant consequence of nursing burnout is patient care. Insufficient care increases a patient’s hospital length of stay. Nosocomial infections are mainly caused by nursing mistakes such as not monitoring adequately or failing to keep a procedure sterile.

Chloe Copping (RGN) published an article titled ‘Preventing and reporting drug administration errors. In this article she suggests that the most common source of drug administration errors are within calculation and also the 5 R’s, right drug, right route, right time, right dose and right patient. She states that a busy working environment can lead to distraction which then leads to medication errors therefore inhibiting patient safety. To overcome this problem she recommends that “good communication, clarity and vigilance are vital whenever drugs are being administered”. After drugs have been administered patients should be observed to ensure that they are not having undesirable reactions to the medication.

Other areas in which registered nurse jobs are expected to increase is home healthcare and outpatient care centers. The growth for these registered nurse jobs may be due to technological advances and pressure from insurance companies to avoid in-patient hospitalization. Many advances in medicine have created registered nurse jobs in which RNs travel to patient homes to provide care or perform procedures in outpatient

This process allows nurses to identify potential problems, develop solutions and evaluate results. Consequences, such as disciplinary action, could arise from not following the nursing process. This is expected from a professional nurse. “Pain affects more Americans than diabetes, heart disease and cancer combined” (NIH, 2013). Studies have shown that by using multimodal techniques for pain management, a patient can have better pain management.

Research studies show that evidence-based practice (EBP) leads to higher quality care, improved patient outcomes, reduced costs, and greater nurse satisfaction than traditional approaches to care.1-5 Despite these favorable findings, many nurses remain inconsistent in their implementation of evidence-based care. Introduction The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between nurses' duty hours, and patient outcome, emphasizing increased negative risk from nurse fatigue, relating to patient injury or death.

Studies show that the hospital stay of patients is usually prolonged approximately 2 more days due to these medication errors. As a result, this increases costs approximately $2000-$2500 dollars per patient (Cheragi, Manoocheri, Mohammadnejad, & Ehsani, 2013). The patients’ physical health is at risk, including the ability to function with everyday activities, and their mental health could be altered, potentially causing anxiety and other psychological symptoms (Rejane & Goldim, 2013). Depending on the type of medication administration error performed, the patient could potentially be physically harmed, incapable of performing activities of daily living, or could potentially die. The elderly are the number one population to have death related to a medication administration errors (Brunetti & Suh, 2012).

During the extended hospital stay, the cost of treatment also increases, sometimes by about 61 percent of the normal charges for treatment (Guse et al., 2015). Evidence based practice has shown evidence that hourly rounding can decrease the general hospital stay significant while at the same time cutting down the cost of treatment through reduction of falls. Nurses against this change complain of increased commitment on other duties, making it difficult for them to attend to their patients within the hour (Marquis & Huston, 2015). It should, however, be understood that hourly rounding may never be successful without teamwork. The absence of one nurse during the hourly rounding should be substituted by another nurse without regular complaints about personal patients.

This act created a major revision of standards of care for nursing homes. This legislation also changed the expectations and the quality of care that patients should receive in long term care facilities. This Nursing Home Reform Act passed by congress specifically stated “that each residents have the right to be free from any physical or chemical restraints imposed for purposes of discipline or convenience and not required to treat the resident’s medical symptoms”. While there may be some benefits to using restraints in nursing homes, however, studies have shown that using restraints in nursing homes negatively impacts patients and for the most part does not prevent them from falling or from other incidents that may occur. There are very high levels of risks associated with the use of restraints (Lapane,150).

Since nursing school, a nurse is trained to prioritized and one of the major priorities is safety. Nursing is an evidence-based practice and it has been proven that the more workload given to a nurse, the increase risk to harm a patient. By increasing the ratio of patients per nurse, there is a cut in the budget but that nosey been safe could go right back with the possible law suit for negligences due to the lack of good care of an overworked nurse (Janes,

Advances in technology have enabled our society to lead longer lives. Instead of infectious diseases seizing lives at mid-life, chronic illnesses plague bodies until they are clutched by death. As chronicity riddles aged bodies, the demands for caregivers are on the rise. Caregivers eventually bear the burden of taking care of loved ones at high costs financially, physically, and emotionally. This discussion will address a documentary, along with subtleties that I was previously unaware of, an attribute I found most surprising, and an influential outlook that will affect my nursing practice.

Change in the Workplace: Implementation Bar-Coded Medication Administration Change is inevitable and constant in the modern world. Continuous advancement in technology is also changing the healthcare system to ensure patient safety and provide high quality patient centered care. The hospitals are adding more and more computer assisted devices and the nurses are facing new challenges every day. Change in the workplace means making changes in the work environment that is different from the current state.