Nurse To Patient Ratio Analysis
Nurse To Patient Ratio
Medtech College
Ethics
August 16, 2010
The past decade has been a turbulent time for US hospitals and practicing nurses. News media have trumpeted urgent concerns about hospital understaffing and growing hospital nurse shortage. Nurses nationwide consistently report that hospital nurse staffing levels are inadequate to provide safe and effective care. Physicians agree, citing inadequate nurse staffing as a major impediment to the provision on high quality of care (Carlson 2010). The shortage of hospital nurses may be linked to unrealistic nurse workloads. Forty percent of hospital nurses have burnout levels that exceed the norms of health care workers. Job dissatisfaction among hospital nurses is four times …show more content…
More studies will be needed to determine the effect on patient outcomes. Meanwhile, several other states have enacted or put into motion legislation addressing safe staffing levels. For instance: In 2004, New Jersey passed legislation requiring hospitals to disclose staffing information. In 2005, Rhode Island enacted legislation requiring hospitals to annually submit a staffing plan. In 2005, Oregon updated and strengthened its 2001 legislation requiring hospitals to appoint a staffing plan committee and take other measures to ensure timely filling of vacancies. In 2002, Texas put in place similar regulations to the original Oregon staffing plan legislation. Twenty-six states, including Connecticut, New York, and Kansas, have introduced or enacted nurse-to-patient ratio legislation; several others have introduced staffing-plan bills, including Indiana, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia. If enacted, the Safe Nurse Staffing and Quality of Care Act of 2005 (Douglas, 2010) would establish federal minimum RN nurse-to-patient ratios to improve patient safety and quality of care and to address the nursing shortage that has left our nation's hospitals critically understaffed. Other initiatives in Illinois and Tennessee attempt to counter shortages and bolster the workforce. Governor Rod Blagojevich (IL) opened the Illinois Center for nursing to …show more content…
hospitals because patients have different care needs. The evidence has clearly demonstrated that many factors related to nurses, patients, and hospitals create a high degree of variability in nursing intensity. Creating a single set of national or state nurse-to-patient staffing ratios could create a situation in which some patients receive more nursing care than needed, and others less care. This could lead to lower quality of care and higher costs. Mandatory nurse-staffing ratios may exacerbate rather than correct the imbalance between patient needs and available nursing resources in U.S. In contrast, optimizing nursing intensity based on actual patient needs could address the perceived nursing shortage by creating a better fit between patient demands and the nursing resources used in the clinical
Medtech College
Ethics
August 16, 2010
The past decade has been a turbulent time for US hospitals and practicing nurses. News media have trumpeted urgent concerns about hospital understaffing and growing hospital nurse shortage. Nurses nationwide consistently report that hospital nurse staffing levels are inadequate to provide safe and effective care. Physicians agree, citing inadequate nurse staffing as a major impediment to the provision on high quality of care (Carlson 2010). The shortage of hospital nurses may be linked to unrealistic nurse workloads. Forty percent of hospital nurses have burnout levels that exceed the norms of health care workers. Job dissatisfaction among hospital nurses is four times …show more content…
More studies will be needed to determine the effect on patient outcomes. Meanwhile, several other states have enacted or put into motion legislation addressing safe staffing levels. For instance: In 2004, New Jersey passed legislation requiring hospitals to disclose staffing information. In 2005, Rhode Island enacted legislation requiring hospitals to annually submit a staffing plan. In 2005, Oregon updated and strengthened its 2001 legislation requiring hospitals to appoint a staffing plan committee and take other measures to ensure timely filling of vacancies. In 2002, Texas put in place similar regulations to the original Oregon staffing plan legislation. Twenty-six states, including Connecticut, New York, and Kansas, have introduced or enacted nurse-to-patient ratio legislation; several others have introduced staffing-plan bills, including Indiana, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia. If enacted, the Safe Nurse Staffing and Quality of Care Act of 2005 (Douglas, 2010) would establish federal minimum RN nurse-to-patient ratios to improve patient safety and quality of care and to address the nursing shortage that has left our nation's hospitals critically understaffed. Other initiatives in Illinois and Tennessee attempt to counter shortages and bolster the workforce. Governor Rod Blagojevich (IL) opened the Illinois Center for nursing to …show more content…
hospitals because patients have different care needs. The evidence has clearly demonstrated that many factors related to nurses, patients, and hospitals create a high degree of variability in nursing intensity. Creating a single set of national or state nurse-to-patient staffing ratios could create a situation in which some patients receive more nursing care than needed, and others less care. This could lead to lower quality of care and higher costs. Mandatory nurse-staffing ratios may exacerbate rather than correct the imbalance between patient needs and available nursing resources in U.S. In contrast, optimizing nursing intensity based on actual patient needs could address the perceived nursing shortage by creating a better fit between patient demands and the nursing resources used in the clinical