Patient Safety And Nurse Satisfaction Essay

For the most part, hospitals are places where one comes for healing and it is place where our clients should feel safe and away from harm. Nurses have an important role as a patient advocate and are to provide all clients with safe, compassionate, and quality care at all times. Nonetheless, the hospital can also be a dangerous place for inpatients. It is a foreign environment to clients and there may be alterations in their medical condition in regards to their physical and/or mental status. With this said, there is a need to improve upon how we care for our clients, especially those who are at most risk for various incidents.

Primarily, it is crucial for health care organizations to focus on ensuring safe and quality patient care, as well as improved job satisfaction by enforcing an optimal and adequate nurse-to-patient ratio and creating innovative and long-term strategies through a collaborative effort. In order to ensure the safety of patients and nurses, state-mandated safe-staffing ratios are necessary. Adequate nurse staffing is key to patient care and nurse retention, while inadequate staffing puts patients at risk and drives nurses from their profession. As baby boomers age and the demand for health care services grows, staffing problems will only intensify. Consequently, safe-staffing ratios have become such an ever-pressing concern. In 2004, California became the first state to implement minimum nurse-to-patient staffing ratios, designed to improve patient care and nurse retention. Subsequent studies show that California’s program measurably improved patient care and nurse retention.

Many nurses face the issue of understaffing and having too much of a workload during one shift. When a unit is understaffed not only do the nurses get burnt out, but the patients also don’t receive the care they deserve. The nurse-patient ratio is an aspect that gets overlooked in many facilities that could lead to possible devastating errors. Nurse- patient ratio issues have been a widely studied topic and recently new changes have been made to improve the problem.

Currently, 6% of hospitals in the United States hold Magnet status (Lowell General Hospital, n.d.). Being a Magnet hospital is an accreditation awarded by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (Lowell General Hospital, n.d.). Such recognition is given to hospitals that aim to focus on quality-patient care provided by nurses (Lowell General Hospital, n.d.). This status is earned and achieved after extensive review, and is good for four years before they are required to meet 35 different areas of focus again (Lowell General Hospital, n.d.). Trinkoff et al. (2010) review the working conditions of hospitals to determine whether Magnet status improves nursing working conditions. The authors of this article come from different areas of expertise as they hold nursing degrees, PhD degrees, ScD degrees, and many others with an educational background in statistics, epidemiology, and nursing. However, the authors fail to study the patient outcomes between Magnet and non-Magnet hospitals and to see if Magnet status has an impact on patient outcomes. They fail to look at the entire picture, as their primary focus is on the working conditions of nurses, and not the patients.

Patients want and expect to receive high quality care. Nurses want to provide the best care possible to their patients and like everybody else; want a pleasing job environment. Hospitals, on the other hand, are expected to provide a safe environment to patients, have enough nursing staff and remain profitable (Keller, Dulle, Kwiecinski, Altimier & Owens, 2013). The ultimate goal is to improve quality of care and patient safety across the United States; therefore, all the different interests of these major stakeholders should be taken into

This nurse is interested in the affects administrative decisions surrounding nurse staffing in regards to patient outcomes and nurses work satisfaction. This nurse began her research with a question in mind; “How do RN to patient ratios affect patient outcomes?” The search returned greater than 2000 articles related to Nurse Staffing and patient outcomes. Although, many of the abstracts supported the relevance of the topic the amount of material was excessive and the subject too broad. In an effort to create a list that would be more manageable, this nurse concluded her topic needed to be refined and constructed a much more concise and limited search until finally she constructed a PICOT question which yielded less results within a limited topic.

A discussion regarding the health care reform or even health care in general can be somewhat controversial. The definition of health is drastically different depending on whom you speak to. Many would define health as " a person's absence of disease, others would describe good health based on the status of mind, body & social well-being" (GCU Lecture, module 2, 2012). According to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, health is defined as "The overall condition of an organism at a given time". An individual's overall health affects the nation, this is where stakeholders come into value. According to Keele, Buckner & Bushnell a stakeholder is either an individual or an organization that either invest time and

Magnet status is one of the highest national recognition for excellent nursing practice in hospitals (ANCC, 2015). It is considered the “gold standard” (Luzinski, 2011). Magnet status recognizes the capability and competence of the

Many organizations face the hard decision of whether or not to pursue a Magnet designation, which is awarded through the American Nurses Credentialing Center, known as the ANCC. In the early 1980’s, the term “Magnet” was developed by the American Academy of Nursing, in regards to a hospital that could attract, and maintain nursing professionals. During an initial study of 163 hospitals, it was found that 41 of those hospitals possessed similar qualities that enabled them to not only attract, but retain nurses because of the quality of the nurse’s work environment (Pierson & Moore, 2007). In conjunction, there were similar characteristics among these hospitals that set them aside from others; which are today known as “the 14 Forces of Magnetism.” The 14 Forces of Magnetism were later configured into a

However, data over the last decade reveals that it is not to the advantage of the nurse or the patient to continue in this fashion. This is an important issue, since patient outcomes and quality improvement are at the crux of every issue in health care. Increased medication errors, falls, inadequate discharge preparation and instructions and consequent early readmissions are all undesirable events in health care facilities and can affect reimbursement as well as hospital ratings. Risks to nurses are prevalent as well, including needlesticks, musculoskeletal injuries, and physical as well as psychological fatigue. Eventually this results in increased nurse burnout, lower retention rates by hospitals, and increasing shortages which perpetuates the overtime cycle.

Many healthcare organizations worldwide are striving to achieve magnet designation. Having the magnet title is essential because it recognizes healthcare organizations that act as a “magnet” for excellence by establishing a work environment that identifies, rewards, and promotes professional nursing (ANCC Magnet Designation, 2012). A magnet hospital is considered to be one where nursing provides excellent patient care, where nurses have a high level of job satisfaction, and where there is a low staff

Errors pervade in our lives whether it is our home, in our workplace, or in our society. The effects of healthcare errors have impacted all our lives either directly or indirectly. Patient safety and quality care are at the core of healthcare system which strongly depends upon nurses. “To achieve goals in patient safety and quality, thereby improve healthcare, nurses must assume the leadership role. Nurses need to ensure that they and other healthcare providers center healthcare on patients and their families. Even though the quality and safety of healthcare is heavily influenced by the complex nature

The broad research problem leading to this study is the belief that nursing shortage in facilities leads to patient safety issues. The review of available literature on this topic shows strong evidence that lower nurse staffing levels in hospitals are associated with worse patient outcomes. Some of these outcomes include very high patient to nurse ratio, fatigue for nurses leading to costly medical mistakes, social environment, nursing staff attrition from the most affected facilities. The study specifically attempts to find a way to understand how nurse

Magnet hospitals are named for their potential to attract and retain qualified nurses. Magnet hospitals are facilities that have been certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center for promoting positive patient outcomes through best practices in nursing (Upenieks, 2003). The Magnet environment fosters autonomy and professional nursing practice. Research shows that Magnet hospitals have better work environments, a more highly educated nursing workforce, superior nurse-to-patient staffing ratios, and higher nurse satisfaction than non-Magnet hospitals (Aiken, Kelly, & McHugh, 2011). Implementation of that environment requires the ability to create trust, accountability, and open communication in changing times.

It is no surprise to the world that we are current nurse’s shortage, and that it will continue to go downwards as time progress, due to lack of federal funding for education and faculty in the nursing discipline. The recent American Journal of Nursing (AJN) article titled “Welcoming the Class of 2021: Prepare for Uncharted Waters” by Kennedy, Maureen Shawn M.A, RN, FAAN (2017), highlights some prominent issues as it relates to nursing shortage across America and how it relates to the quality and safety in nursing. According to the American Journal of Medical Quality (2012), a shortage of registered nurses is projected to spread across the country between 2009 and 2030.