Student To School Nurse Ratio Improvement Act Essay

There is a shortage of all health care professions throughout the United States. One shortage in particular that society should be very concerned about is the shortage of Registered Nurses. Registered Nurses make up the single largest healthcare profession in the United States. A registered nurse is a vital healthcare professional that has earned a two or four year degree and has the upper-most responsibility in providing direct patient care and staff management in a hospital or other treatment facilities (Registered Nurse (RN) Degree and Career Overview., 2009). This shortage issue is imperative because RN's affect everyone sometime in their lifetime. Nurses serve groups, families and individuals to foster

According to Canadian Nurses Association(2009), human health resources have stated that by the end of 2011 Canada will experience shortage of 78 000 registered Nurses (RN) and shortage of 113 000 nurses by the end of 2016. Globally there will be shortage of 4.3 million health care workers. It was also shown that approximately 38% of new graduate nurses leave their workforce within the first year of employment (Lavoie-Tremblay, Wright, Desforges, Gelinas, Drevniok & Marchionni, 2008). According to registered Nurses Association of Ontario (2011), full time positions of RN dropped to 57.9 % in 2010 from 58.9% in 2009. With the current trend it is expected that the Canadian Nursing shortage will increase significantly. In

Nursing tasks delegated should be considered routine care for a specific patient, pose little potential harm, performed with a predictable outcome, and administered according to the plan of care. There should be an assessment of nursing needs including the frequency of nursing care and, the stability of the patient (UT Admin Code R156-31b. Nurse Practice Act Rule, 2013).

A manager should make sure that the resources that are provided to the staff are useful, effective, and helpful. The manager should ensure that they have the adequate amount of resources and tools in order to complete there work and job. When it comes to the issue of nurse staffing ratios, the manager has the responsibility of making sure that the unit is staffed to meet the demands of the patients and there level of care, or acuity (GCU, 2011). Utilizing there skills in leadership, quality care, people and communication can all be of benefit. Leadership skills, such as leading by example, are necessary for nurse managers. Quality care skills can be beneficial to gather the necessary data and provide adequate staffing to promote and improve overall performance. People skills are used to interview new employees and hopefully increase staffing

Observation of signs and symptoms of illness, reactions to treatment, general behavior, or general physical condition, and determination of whether the signs, symptoms, reactions, behavior, or general appearance exhibit abnormal characteristics, and implementation, based on observed abnormalities, of appropriate reporting, or referral, or standardized procedures, or changes in treatment regimen in accordance with standardized procedures, or the initiation of emergency procedures (Business And Professions Code, n.d.).

With the ANA support in March of 2010 President Obama proposed the Health Care Reform Act to help assure individuals better, high-quality, and affordable health care insurance coverage. ("Health care reform in the United States", 2010, p.1). "The health care is a human right, and will continue to fight on behalf of nurses and their patients to ensure that this is achieved" (Ana: Ensuring nurses, paragraph, 1). By attending and speaking at public health care events, being involved with other stakeholders like; Health Reform Dialogue (HRD) group, and along with staying up to date and in contact with the Congress and Capitol Hill the ANA shows it's involvement to achieving the goal that the health care reform act insures. Stakeholders and other health care professional organizations gather to speak about " health coverage, disease prevention, and increasing funds for education. These ideas are now being projected to the media and Congress (Ana: Ensuring nurses).

2010). On the Federal level, in 2002, congress passed the Nurse Reinvestment Act to improve the recruitment and retention of nurses. The act establishes a service to give scholarships and loans to nursing students if they are willing to serve in hospitals with critical shortages of nurses for a two year period. It is also sets up a loan forgiveness program for nurses receiving advanced degrees, who will teach at nursing schools.

During many years the role of school nurse was traditionally viewed as one where the nurse cared for students that were injured, applied bandages and gave out ice bags. Throughout the years the role of the school nurse has evolved into one of leadership and management along with many other duties including traditional roles as mentioned above. The services provided by a school nurse range from assessment and screening to coordinating care for regular students as well as students with special needs. School nursing requires experience and knowledge in school, public, community and emergency health to meet the many needs of school aged children and youth. The school nurse provides many services but the basic services provided include

further their education and specialty, which in turn will affect the amount of future nursing

WOW, that is a lot of patients! This week’s lessons discusses the evolving role of the school nurse not only attending the students’ needs but involvement in “policy-making activities at both the local and state levels (CCN, 2015) The question proposed in this week’s lesson regarding some of the roles for the community health nurses is also applicable to the school nurse. The school nurse is the clinician, case manager, advocate, educator, researcher, administrator, change agent, case finder, coordinator and consultant in order to meet the complex needs of students.

Hospitals nationwide are experiencing nurse shortage and increased workloads because of shorter hospital stays, fewer support resources and higher acuity in patients (Vahey, D. C., Aiken, L. H., Sloane, D. M., Clarke, S. P., & Vargas, D., 2004). Higher nurse workloads are directly associated with job burnout and job dissatisfaction which in turn causes more voluntary nurse turnover and relates to the increased nursing shortage. According to the Missouri Hospital Association the turnover rate of nurses has increased by fourteen percent in the last five years (Browning M., 2012). Nursing shortage is a real threat to the patient population. According to the Quality Health Outcomes Model by the American Academy of Nursing by Donabedian, effects of the healthcare interventions are characterized by the environment the staff works in (Vahey et al., 2004). Donabedian describes that quality metrics can be divided into three broad categories, structural, process, and clinical.

When assessing the health and well being of a population, one must be able identify common health care deficits. Once identified, a nurse can plan appropriate interventions to address health care deficits and improve the population’s overall wellness. The presence of vulnerability among populations make the skill of recognizing and addressing such deficits of vital importance for nurses. In the United States, as well as throughout the world, one such vulnerable population is school-aged children.

The article that I have chosen is of interest to me because as a registered nurse in the school setting, there is a current shortage of school nurses. I found this article by doing a search on Google using the key words “shortage of school nurses”. As a school nurse I am responsible to oversee four elementary schools. I am scheduled to provide approximately 24 hours per week at one school, eight to 16 hours at another school and for the third school, I am to provide eight hours or as needed each week with very limited service to the fourth school. Two of these schools I service are of Title1schools with the majority of the students at the poverty level. Many of these children have chronic illnesses along with complicated health conditions and limited or no health insurance.

Every academic discipline in any profession is governed by its rules and policies developed and prone to amendment from time to time after viewing or arises of an issue. Nursing as a profession practice and an academic discipline is however not an exemption to this (Lasater et al., 2015). The nursing practice has different policies governing the procedures, and that promotes health and wellbeing of the patients as well as creating a conducive environment for nurses and the people they interact with in delivery of their services such as medical therapists, technicians, among others (Blegen et al., 2007). These policies ensure that there is a smooth running of the activities for the nurses as well as the patients. There exists a broad array of policies, but in this paper, the registered nurse safe staffing Act system will be looked into particularly in Florida.

Successful meeting with a policymaker will provide nurses a greater opportunity in further advocacy role. By making partnership with the policymaker, nurses can conduct various educational programs in school to make awareness about heathy nutrition and physical activity program among students, parents and staff. Nurses can evaluate various health measures of school and inform the policymaker if changes are required. This is true when taking an advocacy role in recommending adequate number of school nurses in the primary and secondary school systems. Many times, the number of students that a school nurse is expected to take care is overwhelming. In some part of the United States, school nurses take care of students in more than one school and