The Importance Of Staff Satisfaction And Patient Safety

Over the last decades both public and private hospitals have been experiencing severe financial situations (Everhart, Neff, Al-Amin, Nogle, & Weech-Maldonado, 2013). The financial shortage is associated with delay or even lack of governmental sponsorship and competition from their rivals. Enacting the policy will mount financial pressure on these hospitals that are on cost-cutting strategies. The salaries and wages of nurses are dominating the costs of operation in the hospitals and therefore adding more staff to correct the understaffing will be like creating another problem (Goddard, 2003). Contrary, Empirical studies prove that adequate nurse staffing produces better outcomes for both the staffs and the patients (Donaldson & Shapiro, 2010). These do not mean that the financial performance of the health centers will be at stake. Quality is associated with profitability. Understaffing leads to increased workloads, fatigue and job dissatisfaction. These situations that can be corrected on the implementation of proper staffing policies (Everhart, Neff, Al-Amin, Nogle, & Weech-Maldonado, 2013). The policy aims at offering quality service, reasonable patient-doctor ratios, reducing high mortality rates, improving the health of patients through proper examination and disease diagnosis among other

Providing the best care to each patient starts with providing the proper amount of staff members to each unit. Looking at the needs of different units not only allows administration to see areas for improvement, but also areas that are being handled correctly. Utilizing the indicators provided by The Joint Commission, 4 East, a pediatric medical/surgical floor, has a high rate of falls and nosocomial pressure ulcers that appears to be related to the increase overtime nurses have been working for that floor (Nightingale, 2010). Research has shown increases in adverse events have been related to nurses working over 40 hours a week (Bae, 2012).

The main objective of healthcare professionals is to provide the best quality of patient care and the highest level of patient safety. To achieve that objective, there are many organizations that help improve the quality of care. One of the best examples is the Joint Commission. Unfortunately, the healthcare system is not free from total risks. In healthcare activities, there are possible errors, mistakes, near miss and adverse events. All of those negative events are preventable. But, it is clear that errors caused in healthcare result in thousands of deaths in the United States.

Reasons for mandatory overtime varies from natural disaster to lack of staff. Many companies, organizations, and hospitals require mandatory overtime because of staffing issues. “Increasingly, however, nurses are reporting that mandatory overtime has become standard operating procedure instead of a last resort to short staffing. In fact, in some hospitals, mandatory overtime is routinely used in an effort to keep fewer people on the payroll, as well as to alleviate immediate shortage needs.” (Huston,

Significance: Because nursing is the largest health care profession and nurses provide most of the patient care, and as an acute nurse, I can relate to how unsafe nurse staffing/low nurse-to-patient ratios can have negative impact on patient satisfaction and outcome, can lead to medical and/or medication errors and nurse burnout. It can also bring about anxiety and frustration, which can also clouds the nurses’ critical thinking. Most patients might not know the work load on a particular nurse and can assume that her nurse is just not efficient. Doctors also can become very impatient with their nurses because orders are not being followed through that can delay treatments to their patients. There is also delays in attending to call lights resulting in very unhappy patients who needed help.

The patient has the right to every aspect of their care and this includes being involved in the change-of-shift bedside report. The purpose of this study is to identify the benefits of bedside report and its impact on patient safety, satisfaction, and quality of care. The participants of this study were randomly selected and of varying ages. The methodology utilized in this study is a qualitative and quantitative research. The results of the study will determine the benefits of incorporating bedside report into nursing care.

Several studies have shown that patients get well faster and safer when they receive more nursing care. Even more importantly according to Linda Aiken study (2003), mortality rates and staffing ratios are closely tied. Each additional patient per RN after four patients, chances of dying in the hospital is increased by 7%.Patient on a surgical unit with patient –RN ratio of 8:1 were 31% more likely to die within 30days than those on surgical units with ratios of 4:1.Studies have shown that more infections like UTI, pneumonia, shock or cardiac arrest increases when patients receive fewer hours of nursing care. Medication errors and unsafe hand washing techniques were found more in increased patient workloads. Unsafe staffing gave more job dissatisfaction, job burnout and more nurses quit or drove nurses away from nursing. This increased mandatory overtime and increased nurse shortage. According to survey of California state

Majority of the cost would be on educating the staff through a meeting and written documents. The entire healthcare team and the staff of the unit will be affected by this change. The physicians and nurses will be affected the most because they are the ones doing the morning rounds on the patients, but the house keepers and patient care assistants will also be affected because they to will need to plan a time to go into the rooms when it is least disruptive for the patient.

The article I chose examines the effects that the nurse staffing variables of daily average hours of care, ratio of RNs to average patient census, workload, skill levels, and patient outcomes by comparing and measuring them against five adverse occurrences. The adverse patient occurrences were unit rates of patient

Mandatory overtime has become an increasing problem for nurses who work in many hospital settings. Mandatory overtime is defined as additional hours added to a nurse’s current shift, making the nurse feel as if it’s a threat of being fired or disciplinary action will be taken in some form if they refuse to stay and work. Extensive overtime studies have established and confirmed that there are serious dangers to both the nurse and the patient being cared for in all types of healthcare settings.

From the point of view of hospital management, mandatory overtime is seen as a method to fill staff shortages. According to Yoder-Wise (2015), professional nursing associations, along with provincial governments, provide guidelines for hospital unit staffing requirements related to the minimal number of regulated nurses on a unit at any given time (p. 288). In order to meet these requirements, nursing management must often implement mandatory overtime to ensure the appropriate staff-to-patient ratios on the unit are satisfied.

UCC attempts to use Per Diem MD's and Nurses. Department currently has 4 Per Diems MD's and 2 Per Diem LVN's. Per Diem MD's are encouraged to pick up extra hours, but most work outside of KP or are used to cover special medical leaves in MOB's. Thereby, limiting availability to UCC. Per Diem LVN's are going back to school and limit their availability to department. Manager has hired a Per Diem RN and will be working on hiring another Per Diem RN in January 2016. Part time employees also provide limited amount of hours on a needed basis. Due to lack of appropriate staffing mixture, availability for overtime becomes available to MD's and Nurses outside of department. In 2015, overtime spending resulted in $500K in ancillary and 1.3

According to Ryan Rahilly the vacancy rate is due to reach 29 percent by 2020. During 1980-2000, the average length of hospitalization decreased from 7.5 days to 4.9, however, there was no increase to staffing levels to help with the increase in patient’s needs. Without significant hospital nurse staffing there will be a lack of positive patient outcomes. Studies also show that hospitals with higher RN staffing have lower rates of the five adverse patient outcomes (UTIS, pneumonia, shock, upper GI bleeds and longer hospital stays). The higher staffing levels also are linked to a 2 to 25 percent decrease in these adverse outcomes. Study shows that hospital deaths are also associated with staffing levels.

A negative to this decision would be that hiring on someone would be costly, and the money could be put towards new technologies for the hospital instead. Another negative is that having to organize a time that works for everyone is not only time consuming, but very difficult, as surgeons and nurses are on busy

Nurses sometimes are overworked and put on mandatory overtime schedules. This also leads to nurses sometimes demanding more pay for their time and contracts being looked over and renewed for more pay. This adds to the health care cost system as well. In western Massachusetts we tend to spend more per patient than the national average in Medicare costs. This leads to the health care system costs as well but if consumer demand is there, we must supply and meet that demand and find a way to be efficient and effective at the same time. With efficiency and effectiveness in mind, should nurses be paid more or should there be temporary nurses