Leadership In Nurse Staffing And Patient Care And Safety

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Nurse Staffing and patient care and safety
Identification of the problem
From the Institute of Medicine Committee report, it was clear that nurse staffing was very important in delivering quality services to patients. The report indicated that efficient nurse staffing guaranteed the safety of patients. At Oracle medical centre, there has been reported dissatisfaction from patients who complained of poor services and long waiting hours. The nurses were attending to multiple patients at the same. Furthermore the current nurses are on a 24 hour work shift with no breaks.
This problem is applicable as it will help to give a clear picture of the relationship between staff numbers and negative patient outcome at Oracle.
Investigation of the problem
With the motive of establishing the root cause of poor quality service and overworking of nurses, I decided to undertake a thorough research at Oracle. Questionnaires were developed and given to a few patients who were stable. More so, some patients were interviewed with regard to their consent. In addition, I interviewed a few nurses and requested the other nurses to respond to the questionnaires. I closely observed the nurses at work considering the patient-nurse ratio. Furthermore I observed how the patients reacted to treatment and the amounts of time a nurse spend on one patient’s bed. However, I realized most patient had no nurses at their bedside.
An investigation on the financial status of Oracle was also conducted. This included an investigation of their revenues and financial obligation. Furthermore, using data from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN), I checked the validity of licenses of some of the workers at Oracle.
Analysis of the problem.
From the findings of the investigation, the main cause of poor quality services at Oracle was the nurse-patient ratio and expensive human resource. The nurse-patient ratio was so low that in negatively affected both the patient and the nurse. Oracle hospital nursing staff did not meet the state-mandated ratio and the safe-staffing ratio. This increased the death mortality rate of patients at the hospital. According to Aiken (2014), low nurse staffing ratio increased the chances of death among patients. Furthermore, poor and uninsured patients from the hospital were significantly affected. Understaffed facilities pose a much great threat to patient’s health, (Lucero, 2010). Hence, minimum staffing
Furthermore, due to inadequate staffing, nurses increase their risk to disorders such as shoulder, neck and back injuries. In addition to understaffing, the investigation also found that the Oracles financial status was a problem. However, this was due to expensive compensation packages that nurses attract. The average RN cost-per-hire is around $ 2,820, (Rosseter, 2014). Additionally, supplementary nursing staffs are extremely expensive especially when they are brought from an outside agency, (Kocher, 2011). Therefore, some hospitals hire un-licensed nurses who accept low compensation for their labor.
Proposed solution, resources of implementation and the implementation process
From the analysis, it is clear that understaffing and financial li...