Visit a Patient Care Unit. Critical Care Unit Manager

Patient Care Unit
Name
Institution
Due Date
Patient Care Unit
Write a 4-6 page paper following APA format comparing the two managers’ approaches for meeting the required staffing effectiveness standards. Which approach would you defend, and why?
While conducting the interviews, both managers appeared to be well aware of the Joint Commission’s Staffing Effectiveness Standards. However, their approaches towards meeting these standards are different, and this offers an opportunity to review the two and compare their effectiveness. The two units under study include the Critical Care Unit and the Pediatrics Unit. These units are quite distinct and have different patient-to-nurse ratios. Below is an elucidation of the managers’ approaches for meeting the required staffing effectiveness standards.
Critical Care Unit Manager
There are several stipulations in the Joint Commission’s Staffing Effectiveness Standards, and to help break down the managers’ approaches, each will be considered differently.
With regards to submitting annual reports on “all system or process failures, the number, and type of sentinel events, information provided to families/patients about the events, and actions taken to improve patient safety,” the Critical Care Unit manager prepares quarterly reports. These are then submitted to the hospital management at the end of every year. While explaining the criteria used above, the manager indicated that there are a lot of things to report on every day. So, preparing the reports quarterly and not annually helps to offer a clear picture of what is happening in the Critical Care Unit. Additionally, similar issues are categorized or grouped to help provide perspective on the specific issues outlined in the Joint Commission’s Staffing Effectiveness Standards. This approach according to the manager has helped ensure that relevant data on specific aspects or issues affecting the unit is collected.
It should be noted that staffing effectiveness standards appear to tie staffing and outcomes together. The assumption in the standards is that staffing plays a big role in patient outcomes. Well, the manager of the Critical Care Unit believes in this assumption and is keen on making sure that nursing shortages are not a major or contributing factor in patient outcomes within the unit. While giving a background story to the implementation of the standards, the manager indicated that there have been significant budget implications and that the nurse-to-patient ratio changed to the current 1:2. Nursing shortage is a common problem, and one of the ways of dealing with this issue is overtime. Aside from overtime, there is the use of casual nurses who are called upon when there are emergencies, and a unit needs to hire more nurses but on temporary basis. With regard to these two solutions to nursing shortage, the manager of the Critical Care Unit indicated that even though there have been debates to make overtime mandatory, nurses in his unit have voluntary overtime. This, she says takes the decision away from her. Additionally, she indicated that making overtime mandatory can lead to burnout as well as reduced productivity, which will, in turn, affect patient outcomes ...