The Medical Field : A Wide Field

The problem of inadequate nurse staffs is associated with disadvantages both to the patients and the nurses. The benefits to the patients include reduced mortality rates, improved health, disease prevention, proper patient care among other benefits. On the other hand understaffing has contributed to poor nurse outcomes like job dissatisfaction, fatigue, high workloads, turnovers, and others (Burnes Bolton et al., 2007). The staffing policy will help in solving all the benefits. The national and the local government should fully support this policy as it will health the government’s agenda of providing quality and affordable care. The plan addresses a neglected area that negatively affects the provision of quality healthcare. Although the policy is associated with some costs like salaries and wages its, the benefits outweighs the costs. This study recognizes that personnel is an essential element that cannot be ignored in the health care. Quality health depends on the availability of adequate staffs. Thus, the adequate nurse-staffing policy will help in solving the problems affecting quality health

The ethical theory that underpins one’s perspective on nursing staff shortage is the utilitarianism theory since staffing of the healthcare facilities would lead to the greatest good for the greatest number of people. It would be important to put into place measures that bring little harm to the fewest people. As an advocate of utilitarianism, one would like to see the consequences that result from the actions of the policymakers rather than goodwill towards other people. The utilitarianism theory assists in decision-making regarding public policy development. As such, policymakers’ presumed goal that whatever money is appropriated will further the general good of society.

In a different review of literature on staffing and patient outcomes, Heinz (2004) describes the relationships between staffing and mortality, length of stay, and complications of patients. At first the article paints a clear picture of the future of nursing as it starts to feel the shortage which is approaching due to aging of present nurses, lowered nursing school admissions, and other hospital issues including financial hardships. In looking at the impact of ratios on mortality there were five different studies identified that showed that the lower the ratio, the lower the risk of mortality of patients. A patient's length of stay was also influenced negatively with higher nurse-to-patient ratios and positively with specialized units and care from nurses. The impact of staffing on patient complications also showed that there was an inverse relationship between the two. Heinz concludes that the key to solving these problems in nursing and reducing negative patient outcomes is nursing recruitment and retention (Heinz, 2004).

For my people and my culture, doctor is one of the best career choices one can think of. If one can get into a Medical School, especially outside the country, he/she is considered as the resident of the highest caste of the society in the future. What can we say; doctors are ones with high intelligence, higher budgets, and high dedication in sciences. They are heroes in the white lab coats that perform surgeries, and save lives. Those with high intelligence, but low budgets; or high budgets, but low intelligence and/or dedications, are not good enough to be the heroes for the sick people. They can still be part of the hospital system, not as the hero, but the hero’s helpers.

Nurse-to-patient ratios is not a new topic of debate for all of us who deliver care to patients every day. Only lately it has been a big issue that have caught the attention of many. Demands by the medical community for changes concerning staffing, asking for the government interventions in minimum staffing laws. Registered nurses have long acknowledged and continue to emphasize that staffing issues are an ongoing concern, one that influences the safety of both the patient and the nurse. (ANA, 2015) .nowadays hospitals are running for profit and the emphasis is not put on job burnout, stress, and endangerment of patients. Nursing shortages is a very pertinent problem, it will be optimum to have laws in place to help with the issue, however meanwhile leadership and management methods to the matter can help to mend the nursing situation and avoid many of the damaging effects of unfitting nurse-to-patient ratios.

With a shortage of nurses, the care and safety of patients may become compromised. The nurses themselves may be having feelings of dissatisfaction, overwhelm and distress. Nurses who may become overwhelmed with the high number of patients may become frustrated and burnt out. And inadequate staff of nurses may lead to a negative impact on the patient’s outcome. The quality of care the patients may receive in facilities with low staffing may be poor.

Durning, (2010) tells how nurses are limited in giving quality care due to the number of patients they have on their shift. It also explains the huge difference in the task of caring for a post-partum mother and a patient recovering from a major trauma surgery. When nurses are too busy because they have too many patients to care for, they are more likely to overlook an important change in their patient. This will cause the patient to deteriorate unnecessarily and could potentially result in death (Durning 2010). “Nurses are the main surveillance system in hospitals” (Queensland Nurse, 2010, p.14). If they have too many patients to look after, something is more likely to be missed. There was a study done last year by Nursing Times, that showed the more nurses a hospital had per bed, resulted in fewer patient deaths, and actually lowered the patient’s length of stay (Queensland Nurse, 2010). The state of Victoria in Australia, like California actually has government mandated nurse-to-patient ratios. Since its implementation of the ratios 10 years ago, Victoria’s health system has been made considerably better. There is a safer environment for the patients, the workplace morale is better, and there are less complaints from the public about the quality of care they receive while hospitalized (Holmes, 2010).

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

Being in the medical field is something my family has been in for a few generations now. My grandmother once worked in a nursing home, and my aunts were both nursing assistants. My mother has been in the medical field since she was sixteen, starting in a nursing home, and then becoming a nursing assistant until 2007. Shortly afterwards, she became a medical assistant that she currently still is today. It can only but inspire me to be working in the medical field next. I wanted to be a neurologist first, then a psychologist, but with the amount of schooling and how much debt I’d be in, I thought it through and figured out I want to be a nurse practitioner. They have similar duties to a registered nurse except they give advanced services to patients, and it can be cheaper going to medical school as well as having to go for a shorter amount of time than a regular doctor as well as great benefits and salary.

The global healthcare industry is facing a wide array of pressing challenges at present, many of which can carry grave consequences for the quality and accessibility of medical treatment in the immediate future. The high cost of healthcare, the large proportion of individuals who are currently uninsured and the great variance of health outcomes across different facilities in the field are all conditions that carry significant repercussions if left unaddressed. However, perhaps fewer issues are more troubling to the field than the mounting nursing shortage that threatens labor availability in all manner of hospital, public health clinic and miscellaneous medical facilities. With this shortage come a number of consequences and dangers too extensive to predict in total but including the more frequent occurrence of medical error, the potential for neglect and the assurance of less personal attention for each patient. This denotes the topic of the present research, which concerns the Legal Implications of the Nursing Shortage.

Already coming from a family with a background in the health professions field, I pretty much had a view of what it would be like in the medical field. Going back to my senior year, I had alot of medical experiences that I enjoyed. I enrolled in a special medical program, Aurora LIGHTS, in my highschool in which I shadowed many physicians, physician assistants, dental assistants, midwives and so on. It was challenging and overwhelming at the same time. I got to help people everyday.

If you were to ask anyone in the medical field why they chose it, you would get the same answer from just about everyone. Their goals are all the same, because they all wanna help people and save lives. I have similar goals for myself. I believe everyone has the potential to make a difference, and I believe by becoming a doctor it would be my way to make a difference in the world. We are around the age when they start to ask us what we want to do with the rest of our lives, but I've known what I've wanted to be for a while now. I knew from the moment I was in the hospital with my grandfather right after he had open heart surgery that lt was the right career choice for me. I plan on becoming a

Nursing is the powerhouse in the delivery of safe, quality patient-centered care in the healthcare industry. To ensure continued safety of the patient and nursing staff, the issue of inadequate staffing must be addressed. Consequently, patient’s mortality rate has been linked to the level of nursing staff utilized in ensuring an utmost outcome (Aiken, 2011). This paper will outline the issue associated with inadequate nurse to patient staffing ratios in the hospital setting; essential factors such as economic, social, ethical and political and legal affecting the issue will be established; current legislature and stakeholders will be ascertained and policy option, evaluation of bill and the results of analysis will be reviewed.

In recent years, the healthcare industry has seen a significant decline in the quality of patient care it provides. This has been the result of reduced staffing levels, overworked nurses, and an extremely high nurse to patient ratio. The importance of nurse staffing in hospital settings is an issue of great controversy. Too much staff results in costs that are too great for the facility to bear, but too little staffing results in patient care that is greatly hindered. Moreover, the shaky economy has led to widespread budget cuts; this, combined with the financial pressures associated with Medicare and private insurance companies have forced facilities to make due with fewer

We hear nurse’s talk about how rewarding their profession is but what they seldom talk about is how it can be very challenging as well. There seems to be many issues existing in the nursing profession. One of the most affective issues in nursing is the decreasing number of staff nurses. With inadequate staffing, nurses are demanded to have more responsibilities thus causing more stress on the nurse. This increase in responsibility causes nurses to neglect many aspects of their patients’ care. Patient care is suffering from the shortage of nurses as there is an increase in adverse patient outcomes due to the shortage. Also, there is evidence that there is a positive relationship between the number of staff and the effectiveness of their teamwork. The more staff available the more likely nurses will work together as a team. A new act is being implemented to help with the nursing shortage. This act is called the National Nursing Shortage Reform and Patient Advocacy Act. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issue of nursing shortage and how the National Nursing Shortage Reform and Patient Advocacy Act is an example of evidence-based practice.