Nurse Staffing Case Study

Working on the ICU: Nurse Staffing The process of going to college, studying to become a nurse, and ultimately finding a position in our ever growing, competitive work field is quite the challenge. Now that the beginning stages of our career have been completed and we have secured our positions as an ICU nurse, we face a different dilemma daily within the workplace; understaffing. We have lost three nurses and currently, those positions will not be re-filled, leaving the workload to fall onto our shoulders to bare. Serious consideration should be given to replacing these three positions within the ICU. By having the other nurses bare the extra burden of extra hours, patients will ultimately not receive the best care possible, your remaining
These shifts still need to be filled because of the ever increasing patient amount within the hospital. These extra hours will play a toll on our current employees who are expected to step up and take these extra shifts. “Long work hours can lead to fatigue, restlessness, inadequate sleep, pain and deficits in performance and reaction time as a result of increased exposure to physical demands and insufficient recovery time (Bae, Nursing Overtime: Why, How Much, and Under What Working Conditions?). Continuing, “Reduced rest and recovery time leads to physiologic depletion or exhaustion that continues into the next workday. The Institute of Medicine recommended nurses work no more than 12 hours in a 24-hour period and no more than 60 hours in a 7-day period to avoid error-producing fatigue” (Bae, Nursing Overtime: Why, How Much, and Under What Working Conditions?). Nurses will not be able to abide by this recommendation from the IOM due to the need for overtime of nurses on the ICU from missing three nursing positions. This will prove to be unsafe and unhealthy for the patients and the individual nurse working so many overtime hours alike. “Excessive use of overtime increases nurse injuries, including needle stick and musculoskeletal problems” (Bae, Nursing Overtime: Why, How Much, and Under What Working
“The sitter-related cost is a major budgetary concern for hospitals because such costs are usually not reimbursed by their party payers, and thus pose a serious financial strain. Annual sitter use costs have been reported to be as high as USD $1.3M at some USA hospitals” (Rochefort, Patient and Nurse Staffing Characteristics Associated with High Sitter Use Costs). Due to the three less nurses on the ICU, sitters will more than likely be retained and utilized by the current nurses on the floor to help compensate for the three missing people. “On the healthcare provider side, it has been reported that, in most settings, RNs are directly involved in the decisions to initiate and discontinue sitter use. Once of the factors that has been suggests to contribute to high sitter use costs is the failure of RNs to reassess, on a daily or a shift basis, whether or not the conditions justifying sitter use are still present” (Rochefort, Patient and Nurse Staffing Characteristics Associated with High Sitter Use Costs). Continuing on, “RN’s decisions about the discontinuation of sitter use are likely to be influenced by the availability of RNs. This is because a sufficient supply of RNs is required to monitor at-risk patients on an ongoing basis. When the availability of RNs is reduced, RNs may decide to use sitters to compensate for their reduced