Safe Staffing Compliance

The Ohio house bill 346 also protects nurses by providing laws on staffing. HB 346 “requires hospitals to establish staffing plans, with meaningful input from direct patient care nurses, which are consistent with the principles of safe staffing developed by the American Nurses Association and other nationally recognized organizations” (Ohio Nurses Association, 2011). The American Nurses Association as well as other nursing organizations should continue to advocate for nurses to work towards decreasing nursing workload and preventing burnout.

As health care workers we are under a legal obligation to protect an individual from any kind of abuse, whether it is physical, financial, emotional, sexual or psychological .Legislation, policies and procedures exist to promote a safer working environment and reduce the potential for risks occurring. They are tailored for the needs of each setting, known and understood by employers and employees and reviewed on a regular basis.

I am writing to you in regard to safe patient ratio bill titled Safe Nurse Staffing for Patient Safety and Quality Care Act. My name is Angelina David and I am a registered nurse and practicing in the surgical intensive care unit. I am also enrolled in the Adult nurse practitioner program to further advance my knowledge in nursing. One thing I have learned is that as nurses no matter what the level of care or which facility you are practicing; patients’ safety is our number one priority. Patients’ safety and their quality of care have improved over the year. However, oftentimes nurses are still placed into a situation where it is unsafe to practice because they are required to care for more patients than it is safe.

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.

Mandating safe staffing levels for registered nurses in acute care settings has been an important topic of discussion for many years. As the demand for registered nurses continues to rise, so does the clinical demands on the nurses currently working. If there are no specific policies in place that mandate safe and appropriate nurse-to-patient ratios for all acute care facilities, registered nurses (RNs) may be required to take on even more patients than the already high numbers currently given to many of them. Inadequate RN staffing has the potential to cause increases in adverse patient events (American Nurses Association (ANA), The registered nurse safe staffing act, 2015) as well as an increase in nurse injury (Musick, Trotto, & Morrison,

Nurses are undoubtedly one of the most trusted professionals worldwide. Patients, family members, and doctors entrust nurses to provide the utmost quality care to sick individuals. Top priorities of all nurses are advocacy for their patients: including advocating for their physical health, holistic welfare, and utmost importantly, their safety. Patient safety will always be the top priority when providing patient care. The nurse’s responsibility during every patient encounter is to ensure that each patient under her care, receives no harm. As a direct result of the previous statement, it is crucial that every nurse knows their rights to refuse unsafe patient assignments, the process to refuse unsafe patient assignments, and the legal or ethical ramifications that could present themselves if proper judgement is not used. By understanding these rules, nurses not only achieve the responsibility of advocating for patient safety but also safeguard their careers and license.

It is not a secret that for many years there has been a detrimental nursing shortage in the United States. Factors that contribute to the unfortunate decrease in availability of nurses and other health care professionals can be attributed to a shortage of nursing school instructors which impacts enrollment into nursing schools, and many in the health care profession are nearing retirement age. The need for health care continues to steadily increase as the baby boomer generation ages. In order to meet these demands, there has to be adequate staff in the workplace. After an extended amount of time dealing with unsafe staff to patient ratio it has come the time to take action and devise solutions rather than letting patient care suffer. After comparing a variety of possible solutions, the most feasible was to create and implement a clear updated set of regulations, and formulate a law to enforce the same. The proposed solution will address the ineffectiveness of current health care staffing regulations, propose a law that will enforce safe staff to patient ratios, mandate that all parties involved in developing health care laws be members of the health care field themselves, and work to maintain a strict continuous reassessment phase to ensure that all changes remain beneficial. With the help of the entire health care community the implementation of this proposed solution will create a dramatic decrease in adverse patient outcomes while increasing patient and staff

I found your paper informative since it is the topic of my health policy paper for this course. I know all too well how it is to work in unsafe staffing environments. Doing some research I came across an association that is working toward establishing safe staffing laws. The National Nurses United (2015), the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in U.S. history, has a nationwide campaign in support of safe staffing for RNs and patients. They currently have two national safe patient ratio bills including one in Senate (S. 864) and one in the House (HR 1602).

I completely agree with RN Safe staffing issue. In the hospital I work at, we experience nurse shortages all the time. We are also pulled from our home unit to another unit that you may have never worked in, but they need a nurse or an aide. When you are hired you are oriented to the other units, but it could be six months or longer before you work on that unit again which to me is unsafe. We have nurses from the OB/GYN unit who know nothing about a person being on a heart monitor, working in our unit because their unit has a low census and our unit is full and we need another RN. So is this considered an unsafe work environment or is it considered safe because the patient/nurse ratios match what the staffing matrix says or is patient

How many patients can a nurse effectively care for at the same time? The complexity of that question has caused it to be quite difficult to answer. In the hospital setting today, managers are found being forced to create guidelines for staffing based on numbers instead of needs. These new staffing models are established based on nurse to patient ratios. Therefore, patient census is the primary determining element for justification of available health care providers per shift (Artz, 2005). Acuity of patients and experience of providers are no longer factors that are being considered, and these nurse to patient ratios do not always provide a safe environment. Research has shown that these ineffective nurse to patient ratios are contributing to inadequate patient care (Sochalski, 2004). A new approach for nursing staffing needs to be put enacted for the furtherance of quality of care, patient safety, nurse satisfaction and the overall healthcare environment.

According to The Journal of the Medication Association (2002), Hospitals, which routinely staff with 1:8 nurses to patient ratios, experience five additional deaths per 1,000 patients than those with 1:4 nurse to patient ratio. Safe nurse staffing ratios has been a significant issue that, registered nurse professionals have been struggling to overcome for many years. In the randomized research study, “Nurse Staffing Levels and The Quality Care in Hospitals”, by Needleman, J, Buerhaus, P, Maureen, S, and Zelevinsky, K, administrative data was collected from hospitals based in 11 states, to determine the correlation between the amount of care provided by nurses, safe staffing levels, and adverse patient outcomes. According to this study, “Among

Through all the research, in regards to Safe Harbor, important information was obtained and some misconceptions were set straight. At the facility that this nurse works, it has always been threatened to claim Safe Harbor and the nurse to walk out. Recently, this was done when the medical-surgical nurse was asked to accept an admission on top of the other patients already being cared for by her, which would increase her patient load to a total of six patients. Acuity of the patients was not taken into account by the nurse. According to facility policy, this is an adequate staffing ratio. Staffing 1:5 or 1:6 for nurse-patient ratio is a recommend ratio for a medical-surgical unit (Tevington, 2011). Once researching Safe Harbor, there were multiple

I have only been in the healthcare field now for a total of five years and have seen many changes in this relatively short amount of time. All of my experience in this field has been with the Ridgeview Medical Center (RMC) in Waconia, MN so I will be including some examples of my own as well as my wife’s healthcare experiences. I have also spoke with those of some of my friends who are in the healthcare world as well as my coworkers who I have been discussing the topic of “Safe Staffing”.

Nursing today, similar to many other aspects of life, is a supply and demand balance. Currently, we are experiencing a gap between the demand of patients’ needs and the supply of nursing care needed to meet those needs (Welton, 2007). For many years, legislators at the state and national level have attempted to resolve this gap by setting safe staffing standards (Hertel, 2012). The goal is to improve the delivery and quality of safe patient care (Welton, 2007).

Hospitals and other healthcare facilities can only maintain their credibility through a well-protected and healthy workforce. Policies such as combating violence and hazards in the workplace give patients more faith and trust in their healthcare providers' (Fitzpatrick, 2013). Nursing also becomes more committed to their work and faithful to their patients when they know that their safety and health is put into consideration (Fitzpatrick, 2013). Institutions that take care of their stuff such as minimizing exposure to harmful chemicals to their nurses tend to be more successful with a more robust workforce that those who neglect responsibility for their workers (Fitzpatrick, 2013). Nurse safety in the workplace is a reflection of the ANA code of ethics.