Ramification of inappropriate Nursing staffing
The world at large is in need of nurses more than any time before in history because if the rise of new health issues in the world that require nursing intervention. As many have argued, the world is also aging meaning that more and more people cannot take care of themselves thus necessitating need for nursing services. A previous conference for the American nurses association identified inappropriatenursing staffing as the major nursing concern in America and in extension the whole world. In Australia, inappropriate nursing has been a perennial issue in the health care system. This Picot study seeks to establish the consequences of inappropriate nursing staff in health care system. It provides a background data on the issue of inappropriate nursing staff and identifies five research question will enable formulate an evidence based practice. The Picot will address the nurse patient ratio, the necessary interventions, the difference in care between well-staffed areas and those with inadequate nurses and lastly, the practice will identify the opportunity or the importance of safe staffing for both the patients and nurses.
Literature Review
All human beings are entitled to quality health care. All the same, care can only be provided with adequate materials and human resource in order to ensure the rights of the patients and those of health care providers are respected. Unfortunately, this has not been the case in most countries where the nurse patient ratio identified by the World Health Organization remains low even with all the efforts the respective government s to accord the citizens quality health. If you walk through the corridors of most hospitals, you are likely to hear the nurses complain of fatigue, or burn out which they attribute to excess work they have to handle because of inappropriate staffing. In most countries, either their complaints are futile or the country does not have adequate pool of nurses to employ from. In fact, most developed countries have to depend on imported nursing labor in order to accomplish their expectation or merely reduce the labor burden. This PICOT study identifies the following five questions that will be used in formulating evidence based practice, which are formulated following theguidelines provided by Karen (2011).
The Research Questions
Based on the facts discussed above, the following questions were considered about the inappropriate nursing staff levels:
1. What factors contribute to inappropriate staffing?
2. What are the ramifications of inappropriate staffing?
3. What are some of the issues causing inappropriate staffing?
4. Is inappropriate staffing causing nursing burn-out?
5. Is inappropriate staffing reflected in patient care surveys?
PICO Analysis of the Research Question
The question that was chosen to be most important in significance is question number
two, “What are the ramifications of inappropriate staffing?”. The population (P) will be nurses, as they will be the participants in the research. The issue (I) will be inappropriate staffing. The comparison (C) is being appropriately staffed. The outcome (O) will be healthier, happier, nurses and patients.
One of the major effects of inappropriate nursing is compromised patient care. As previously argued, every patent has the right to receive adequate safe care. However, with the low number of nurses, this remains a dream to many patients (Hoot & Aronsky, 2008). For instance, lack of adequate specialized nurses to care for patients requiring specialized services compromises the care they are given because they rely on general nurses who do not fully understand their needs. Consequently, the care given is below par and sometimes may be unsafe for the patents (Kanai-Pak et al., 2008). In fact, even where there are specialized nurses, the nurse patient ratio is not adequate therefore reducing the efficacy of nursing care delivery. Because of the below optimum care given, the patients are forced to stay in hospital for longer period that is recommended which lead to increased health care cost burden for the patient as well as the government (Kanai-Pak et al., 2008).
Another significant consequence of inappropriate nurse staffing is the effect it has on the nurses’ health. It is the right of every health care provider to work in safe environment where his/her health and comfort is assured. With reduced staffing, nurses are forced to work for longer period of time and deal with greater number of patients than is recommended. This phenomenon has all the negative effects reported by nurses. First, the long working hours lead to fatigue because of the excess stress from work (Garrett, 2008). As the stress builds, the nurses report symptoms of burn out which in severe cases lead to breakdown. Staff burn out is considered one of the major health concerns not only for the care providers but also for patients. Stress and burnout reduces the efficiency of health care providers hence suboptimal care delivery to the patients (Kanai-Pak et al., 2008). In addition, it is the major cause for nurse employee’s turnover rate in hospitals as well as the high number of absenteeism witnessed in the public health care system (Hayes et al., 2006).
Keywords for Literature Search
Based on the above, the following keywords will be used in helping narrow down the research material: understaffing, healthcare safety, nurse burn-out, complexity of healthcare, nurse safety, patient safety, patient satisfaction rates, morale, medication errors, nurse stressors,
In conclusion, there is need to tackle the ever increasing need for nurses in the health sector in order to ensure the patients receive sufficient care. This study is expected to establish more ramifications for inappropriate nursing in order to give evidence based recommendations on how the government and hospitals can handle the issue of inappropriate nurse staffing in the country. This project will significantly influence policy making in the country by establishing the most effective manner of utilizing the available nursing staff.
