The Effects of Staffing Levels on Nursing Quality and Care
The Effects of Staffing Levels on Nursing Quality and Care
In recent years, the healthcare industry has seen a significant decline in the quality of patient care it provides. This has been the result of reduced staffing levels, overworked nurses, and an extremely high nurse to patient ratio. The importance of nurse staffing in hospital settings is an issue of great controversy. Too much staff results in costs that are too great for the facility to bear, but too little staffing results in patient care that is greatly hindered. Moreover, the shaky economy has led to widespread budget cuts; this, combined with the financial pressures associated with Medicare and private insurance companies have forced facilities to make due with fewer personnel. The resulting struggle between the nursing staff and management has been an ongoing one. The issues related to this have been documented in many studies, and all seem to come to the same conclusion: nurse staff levels have a substantial impact on care received. The studies vary in focus from patient mortality to job dissatisfaction and nurse burnout. These studies show a direct correlation between the amount of patients nurses are assigned, and the quality of care they are able to provide. A study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health Human Subjects Committee studied the correlation between staff levels of registered nurses, and six outcomes. The outcomes were comprised of length of hospitalization, rates of urinary tract infections, upper gastrointestinal bleeding, hospital acquired pneumonia, shock or cardiac arrest, and failure to rescue. Researchers used statistics from 799 hospitals in 11 states from different regions of the country. They were careful to limit their consideration to hospitals with average staffing levels, excluding hospitals with unusually high or low staff levels.
The conclusion of the study showed a positive association between the number of hours that a patient received
In recent years, the healthcare industry has seen a significant decline in the quality of patient care it provides. This has been the result of reduced staffing levels, overworked nurses, and an extremely high nurse to patient ratio. The importance of nurse staffing in hospital settings is an issue of great controversy. Too much staff results in costs that are too great for the facility to bear, but too little staffing results in patient care that is greatly hindered. Moreover, the shaky economy has led to widespread budget cuts; this, combined with the financial pressures associated with Medicare and private insurance companies have forced facilities to make due with fewer personnel. The resulting struggle between the nursing staff and management has been an ongoing one. The issues related to this have been documented in many studies, and all seem to come to the same conclusion: nurse staff levels have a substantial impact on care received. The studies vary in focus from patient mortality to job dissatisfaction and nurse burnout. These studies show a direct correlation between the amount of patients nurses are assigned, and the quality of care they are able to provide. A study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health Human Subjects Committee studied the correlation between staff levels of registered nurses, and six outcomes. The outcomes were comprised of length of hospitalization, rates of urinary tract infections, upper gastrointestinal bleeding, hospital acquired pneumonia, shock or cardiac arrest, and failure to rescue. Researchers used statistics from 799 hospitals in 11 states from different regions of the country. They were careful to limit their consideration to hospitals with average staffing levels, excluding hospitals with unusually high or low staff levels.
The conclusion of the study showed a positive association between the number of hours that a patient received
References: Aiken, Linda H., eta l. “Hospital Nurse Staffing and Patient Mortality, Nurse Burnout, and Job Dissatisfaction.” The Journal of the American Medical Association. 288 (2002): 1987-1993. Web. 9 July. 2001. Needleman, Jack, et al. “Nurse Staffing and Inpatient Hospital Mortality.” The New England Journal of Medicine. 364 (2011): 1037-1045. Web. 9 July. 2011.