Effects of Minimal Nurse Staffing and Its Effects on Patient Care and Safety Research Paper

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Nursing Shortages

"The United States is projected to have a nursing shortage that is expected to intensify as baby boomers age and the need for health care grows. Compounding the problem is the fact that nursing colleges and universities across the country are struggling to expand enrollment levels to meet the rising demand for nursing care…" (American Association of Colleges of Nursing).

Minimal Nurse Staffing - Negative Impacts for Patients

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has published research on the impacts of nursing shortages in healthcare facilities. "Hospitals with low nurse staffing levels tend to have higher rates of poor patient outcomes," the report explains (Stanton, 2008). This situation is exacerbated by the fact that at the time of this report there was a "…vacancy rate of 13%" in U.S. hospitals, Stanton reports.

Some of the typical negative impacts in hospitals -- "adverse patient outcomes" -- due to nursing shortages include: "urinary tract infections (UTIs)"; "pneumonia"; "shock"; "upper gastrointestinal bleeding"; "longer hospital stays"; "failure to rescue"; and "thirty day mortality" (Stanton, p. 3). Another study, conducted by the Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC), shows that lower nurse-to-patient levels were associated with "higher rates of nonfatal adverse outcomes" (Stanton, p. 3). Still another research study funded by AHRQ reflects that pressure ulcers, falls and "nosocomial infections" are more common when staffing nurses is a problem for a healthcare facility (Stanton, p.

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3).

The Health Resources and Services Administration along with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the National Institute of Nursing Research have published facts related to nursing shortages and patient outcomes. These healthcare research groups studied the records of "5 million medical patients and 1.1 million surgical patients who had been treated at 799 hospitals during 1993," Stanton continues. They found that in hospitals with "high RN staffing," patients had "lower rates of five adverse patient outcomes," including pneumonia, upper gastrointestinal bleeding, UTIs, and shock. And higher nurse staffing also showed that there was a reduction of 2 to 25% "reduction in adverse outcomes" (Stafford, p. 4).

Why are Nurses Dissatisfied with their Jobs?

Stanton explains that a survey by AHRQ indicated that 40% of nurses interviewed were dissatisfied with their jobs and only 35.7% said that the "quality of care on their unit" was excellent (Stanton, p. 5). In fact a "large portion of nurses, 44.8%," reported that their experiences showed that there had been "deterioration in the quality….....

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