As we talked about last week, the Safe Staffing Act will have a huge impact on nurses as well as clients and the health care system. The ANA sees this as a very important issue in health care. The president of ANA, Karen Daley, said "We know that nurses across the country are deeply concerned about unsafe staffing because it puts patients at risk as well as puts nurse’s careers on the line. Nurses observe all the time how insufficient nurse staffing diminishes the quality of care for patients. We wont stop advocating on this issue until federal legislation is enacted to increase protections for patients and ensure fair working conditions for nurses.” Safe staffing is a major concern because it impacts both patient safety as well as job satisfaction for the nurses. Stress related to higher patient ratios is directly related to nurses being unable to provide proficient and quality bedside care. This is one of the major reasons nurses leave the bedside perpetuating a shortage of nurses. In order to keep nurses at the bedside we need to create an optimal working environment. Also understaffing of registered nurses is leading to an increase in unlicensed personnel performing duties for which they are not licensed to do.
Patient safety and outcome is another concern because when nurses have an increased patient load it makes it more difficult to provide safe and therapeutic care. A study conducted in 2002 by Linda Aiken PhD, RN, showed that “each additional patient added to the average workload of staff registered nurses (RNs) increased the risk of death following common medical procedures by 7%, and the risk of death was more than 30% higher in hospitals where nurses' mean workloads were 8 patients or more each shift than in hospitals where nurses cared for 4 or fewer patients.” The Safe Staffing Act not only affects nurses workloads but more importantly it affects patient safety and overall well-being.
The governmental objectives include that the safe staffing bill would require hospitals that participate in Medicare to make nurse staffing plans for each unit accessible to the public. It would limit the practice of floating nurses by making sure that RNs do not work in areas where they lack the education and experience in that specialty. ANA is one of the major groups that has had political influence on this policy. They are promoting this bill and other legislation that holds hospital accountable for developing and implementing unit nurse staffing plans. Based on their principles there are no mandated ratios for nurse staffing plans because they want them to be based on specific needs for each individual unit and the RN’s are directly involved in coordinating the staffing plans. Some of the political figures that support this bill include Representative Lois Capps (D-CA), Representative Steven LaTourette (R-OH), Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), and Delegate Vivian Watts (D-VA).
This is indeed a very prevalent problem in the nursing field that hinders the nurse’s ability to give the best care possible. As you said, the shortage of RN’s affects patient safety by increasing the stress of the RN’s and increasing unlicensed personnel performing duties they are not licensed to do. The movement toward regulating the number of staffed RN’s to patient ratio will improve the nursing work experience as well as the quality care of the patient. It is very beneficial that this bill addresses the need to regulate nurse staffing depending on specific units requirements. While this bill aims to improve safety, how will the current shortage of RN’s influence the effectiveness if it is implemented? Does this bill address the economic influences and aspects surrounding employing more RN’s?
ReplyDelete-Group 12
Group 8 agrees with your position on the Safe Staffing Act. I recently attended a Nurse Leader class which discussed the importance of nurse satisfaction with employment in hospitals and the association between this and Magnet status hospitals. If the nurse feels that he or she can provide adequate, safe care for his or her patients, he or she will feel a higher level of competence in care and job satisfaction. This will lead to lower nurse turnover rates and the associated costs to the hospital will be decreased. It is also essential to consider the patient safety aspect of staffing. Patients who are confident in the abilities of the nurse to provide care will have a better perceived outcome than patients who worry about a nurse who is overwhelmed with his or her patients. Will the nurse-patient ratio be decided by all of the nurses on the unit or will this decision be left to a clinical nurse leader or nurse manager? Great blog!
ReplyDelete