Nurses Prone to Work Related Injuries Nurses are advocates for not only the patient but the nursing profession as a whole. Although nurses strive to provide optimal high quality care, it does not come without high cost to the healthcare team. “The concept of work ability is related to a worker’s capacity to perform his or her work tasks, given the work demands, his or her health status, and physical mental abilities” (Fischer and Martinez, 2013). High quality care and treatment relies on nursing professionals being able to complete their daily tasks with effective time management and without injury. The demands of the healthcare system are continuously evolving in relation to their being a shortage of nurses and an increase in patient load
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.
In the ever changing world of healthcare, healthcare organizations in order to be the most efficient in their delivery of healthcare, streamline their organizational structure to stay competitive, while providing the best patient care possible. This process can place increasingly undue stress onto its staff resulting in nurses having to do more with less available resources which ultimately increases their workload, has them working longer hours due to staff shortage, which contributes to an increase in the nurse burnout rates. This eventually filters down to the patient’s level of care and means less time spent on each
Nurses find themselves in the middle of a complex health care system between the financial side and patient safety. A professional nurse’s goal is to provide safe, quality, patient care. However, nurses often fail to meet this goal due to the variability in patient acuity, the unpredictable workload of nurses, and institutional budget constraints (ANA, 2014). According to the American Nurses Association (2014) research shows that lower staffing levels of registered nurses correlate with poor patient outcomes, as well as negative nurse outcomes, such as physical injury and ‘burnout.’
Working with the available staff increases the nurses’ workload and the risk for patients’ negative outcomes. Heavy nursing workload adversely affects patient safety and negatively affects nursing job satisfaction (Carayon & Gurses, 2008, p. 1). Furthermore, a study on the hospital nurse shortage and the California legislation about minimum hospital patient-to-nurse ratios concluded that the nurse staffing levels affect patients’ outcomes detrimentally; for each additional patient per nurse was associated with a 7% increase in the likelihood of dying within 30 days of admission and a 7% increase in the odds of failure-to-rescue. In addition, this study concluded that 23% of the nurses were associated with burnout and a 15% increase in job dissatisfaction (Aiken, Clarke, Sloane, Sochalski, & Silber, 2002, p.
I am writing to provide you with an updated status concerning the above-referenced industrial injury case.
Through experience, it is recognizable that the focus of nursing is shifting as a result of cost-efficient care approach, increased workload, and time consumed by performing technical skills. As a consequence, research has shown poor patient outcomes as nurses are faced with decreased amount time to connect with their patients (Canadian Federation of Nurses Union [CFNU], 2012). Despite the tasks at hand, the nursing scope of practice (College of Registered Nurse British Columbia[CRNBC], 2016) is to support patients through all aspects of their health challenges. This means that nurses need to attend to any aspects such as
Safe nurse-patient ratio is a complex issue debated on for many years. Due to inadequate staffing registered Nurses are faced with high patient ratios, and nurse burn out everyday. According to the American Nurses Association, “Massive Reductions in nursing budgets combined with, the challenges presented by a growing nursing shortage have resulted in fewer nurses working longer hours for sicker patients. This situation compromises care and contributes to the nursing shortage by creating an environment that drives nurses from the bedside”. (2012) Through the nurse’s process, the essential role of the Registered Nurse is to assess, diagnose, and plan based on outcomes, implement and evaluate the effectiveness of nursing care. However, it is not realistic to thoroughly implement these core guidelines in a safe and effective way, when you are responsible for an inadequate patient load.
In an ideal world, nurses’ hours would be limited in order for them to provide quality care for their patients. However, how can nurses provide patient satisfaction when they are clearly not able to care for themselves first? In comparison to other professions that have recognized and addressed the issue of fatigue from working long hours and the employee’s safety, although, the working hours of those in nursing profession has yet to be revised.
Registered nurses have many important roles and responsibilities when involved with the care of a patient. The main roles in nursing care do not change, regardless of whether they work in a small town clinic, a community centre or a large scale hospital. One of the main responsibilities all registered nurses have is to consistently provide high quality, safe and evidence based holistic health care to every one of their patients and to cause no harm. Providing high levels of attention and care on a daily basis for long shifts at a time can be stressful and both physically and emotionally demanding. This can cause nurses to ‘burn out; which has a negative effect on the nurse’s wellbeing and potentially on the care and outcomes of their patients.
The focus of the red team’s project is Nurse’s Fatigue. Brunt (2017), defines nurse’s fatigue as a cognitive and physical impaired function. The cause of fatigue results from shifts longer than 12 hours or mental exertion with inadequate rest. The significance of the problem is having fatigue nurses work on the floor, endangering patients and increasing hospital errors. MacPhee, Dahinten and Havaei (2017), concluded that 89% of observed performance can potentially interrupt patient safety and diminish the nurse’s true ability in multiple levels. The health outcomes include, low-quality of patient care leading to a loss of a patient’s life, job dissatisfaction and burnout nurses. The ability to care for the patients becomes compromised resulting to an unsatisfied job performance. For instance, higher fall rates and an increase in morbidity or mortality rate. According to the ANA (2017), the statistic documentation included 50% were exhausted, 40% felt powerless with quality patient care and 26 % are frightened for their patients. The purpose of this paper is to interpret the two articles that will benefit the group’s project. This paper will describe the literature, the concept, the methods, the participants involved and the instruments used during the researcher’s study.
The issue of healthcare personnel scarcity continues to be an ongoing challenge across the globe. Invariably, nurses are at the pinnacle in the delivery of quality care in any healthcare setting. The ever-increasing demands for care stem from a patient populace that is emergent, growing older and needing more care due to the escalating shift in their disease process. Hence, nurses are torn between balancing an overloaded schedule, working extra hours and maintaining astuteness and professionalism. This transcends to compromised patient care, nursing burnout makes it difficult for them to experience the rewards of caring for patients in the way they had expected; thereby, adding to the shortage of
Nursing is an arduous profession and it has many rewards and hardships. After devoting five years into nursing, I always ask my fellow, elderly nurses that how they manage to work at the bedside this long. The answer is usually, "nursing has changed over the years". The nursing value has shifted from patient centered care to patient and family centered care. Therefore, the focus is geared more towards patient satisfaction and healthcare costs. This in return has built enormous amount of stress among nurses, causing mental and physical burnout. The physical burnout is from lifiting and turning patients without a proper staffing and equipments provided. Budhrani-Sahni & Collegues (2016) stated that nursing is the fifth largest
The nursing shortage and provision of safe nursing care is a significant problem in all countries, and it affects nurses in all practice areas ranging from the bedside nurse to the boardroom. Inadequate nurse staffing levels by experienced Registered Nurses (RNs) is linked to poor health outcomes and higher costs. The reductions in nursing budgets, combined with the challenges presented by a growing nursing shortage has resulted in fewer bedside nurses working longer hours and care for high acuity patients. This situation compromises care and contributes further to the nursing shortage by creating an environment that drives nurses from the bedside.
As mentioned before, the awards for non-work related injuries can be substantial, so every insurance company needs to make sure that the claims of injury are true. The stakes are high. Although many insurance policies have payout limitations, in some jurisdictions, the sky's the limit for pain and suffering. Every day throughout the country there are people who attempt to cash in on a fake injury or exaggerate injury as if they are playing a lottery. A large enough check from an insurance company and they are living on easy street. A private investigation firm can attempt to gather as much evidence as possible for you and your legal team to defend yourself from
Being injured on the job is never something that is preferable. Neither the employer nor the employee wants these types of things to happen, and both suffer the consequences of an accident. However, there are times when they do. If you find yourself in this situation, you will want to be certain that you have the representation you need to get through the legal process.