Staffing By Acuity vs. Staffing By Numbers

Staffing By Acuity vs. Staffing By Numbers
Institution
Date
Abstract
An appropriate nurse staffing is a critical element in health facilities that ensures the safety and well-being of the patients and caregivers. According many people’s views, health organization that have inadequate staffing level experience staffing malpractices such as medication errors, falls, respiratory infections, and an increase in heart attacks among other things. A recent study in a health facility revealed that a patient risks dying within the first 30 days of admission in a health institution in the event that they are added to a nurse’s workload that passes a particular point. This view holds that inadequacies in staffing levels, has led to many nurses spending less or no time with their patients due to excessive busy units (Armstrong-Stassen, Cameron, Rajacich, & Freeman, 2014).
It is against this backdrop that it is significant to point out that this view has been challenged by many health institutions. It is imperative to realize that when an institution of health staffs its nurses according to numbers, it would mean that all their patients require the same care methods regardless of the complexities and illnesses they have. When staffing is done on the basis of numbers, nurses are likely to experience depletions in morale, burnouts a factor that leads to higher levels of staff absenteeism. This also clearly shows the intensity of this problem and, therefore, indicates that a change should be enacted through the introduction of a nursing structure through acuity in order to decrease instances of burnout and increase the satisfaction of patients.
In order to develop a sustainable change that ensures the safe practice within the nursing fraternity, there are several factors that need to be incorporated to finding a solution (Armstrong-Stassen, Cameron, Rajacich, & Freeman, 2014). These factors include investing in approaches that clearly define how to incorporate acuity in staffing, an improvement in healthcare delivery systems and the development of policies and regulations that ensure health facilities adhere to the frameworks of proper staffing. Finding a solution to this requires a collaborative effort among the nurses and their leaders, the government, healthcare executives, media and the leaders in the education field.
Introduction
Nurse staffing levels are affected by a number of external factors that range from staffing by numbers as opposed to acuity. Due to the recession, many health institutions have cut down on the number of nurses they employ, a factor that widely affected the delivery of services to patients (Armstrong-Stassen. et.al). Due to this staffing approach, health institutions are bound to offer services that may not meet the needs of their patients.
In regards to this there are legislative efforts that have been developed to address the issue of nurse staffing thus mandating institutions to consider revising the nurse-patient ratios and also developing reporting systems to ensure that there are proper principles for staff practitioners in the health sector (Armstrong-Stassen. et.al). However, due to the diversity in the healthcare setup and the traditional views of how staffi...