Rounding in Long Term Care as Related to Nursing Ratios

Rounding in Long Term Care as Related to Nursing Ratios Tamika James, RN Grand Canyon University- NRS433V April 22, 2018 Rounding in Long Term Care as Related to Nursing Ratios Patient safety is a major concern not only to the patients but also to the healthcare providers within a healthcare organization. The quality of patient care particularly in long term care is of paramount importance for the aged population in these care facilities. Nursing homes also known as Long Term Care Facilities are a place that many old and aging adult have to call home. The LTC facility has accepted the responsibility of providing a safe environment and the management of any medical and nursing care that may be necessary. "The Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987 established federal requirements that are applied when surveying and certifying nursing homes for participation in Medicare and Medicaid"(Tilly, Black, & Ormond, 2003). However, more often the quality of care in these facilities is of low standards that does not satisfy the patient quality care needs. The purpose of this research is to identify how patient outcomes improve and unnecessary injuries and hospital admissions are also reduced with improved and better nurse to patient ratios in LTC settings. Seeking to answer these questions: Do patient outcomes improve with lower patient to nurse ratios? Does Nurse burn/call outs decrease with better staffing ratios? Are unnecessary hospitalizations and injuries reduced with proper staffing ratios? The main challenge for achieving quality care is particularly because of the insufficient nurses to take care of the elderly. Frequently and very often within the LTC setting or in nursing homes qualified staff, adequate staff and staff retention are major problems. Even as recent as 2018, standard LTC staffing nurse to patient ratios can be one nurse to twenty five patients during the daytime hours and one nurse to fifty patients on a night shift. These massive and insurmountable assignments are created and given under the standard that patients are chronically ill which is rated as low on the acuity staffing model. What is constant in the LTC setting is the low patient satisfaction and marginal patient care that is familiar and highly associated with the care rendered in nursing homes. One of the major resultant problems is the falls among the elderly population in the LTC. A 2016 report by the World Health Organization indicated that 20% to 30% of the older adults experience injuries resulting from falls that they encounter in the LTC. These falls increase their rate of mortality and the costs of healthcare. In Silvestre et. al. (2015) article titled Improving the Quality of Long-Term Care; there is a direct statement that staffing has a direct correlation on patient outcomes. "Resistance to culture change, issues with staffing, and inadequate staff development and education are among the central challenges facing LTC; the following discussion addresses these challenges by providing potential strategies to achieve improved quality of care in LTC"(Silvestre et. al., 2015). The culture of LTC is one that is very unfavorable to the outcomes of the aging. Nurses are forced to learn short-cuts and quick fixes to administer medications to twenty-five or mo...