Mandated nurse to patient ratios
The healthcare industry is continuously growing over the years. More people are growing old and more disease processes are becoming chronic. Over time, the demand for nurses are increasingly rising, as the result of more hospitalizations and nursing shortage. Several states have passed legislation for mandated nurse to patient ratios. Mandated nurse to patient ratios set the minimum standard of care for a number of patients per nurse (Evans, 2006).
Patient care is the number one priority for nurses in the healthcare industry. However, because of the nursing shortage, the hospitals have difficulty fulfilling its job of keeping the nurse to patient ratios at a level that it is safe and productive. Several states have mandated nurse to patient ratios, which sets a minimum standard of care. Without such laws, hospitals have the tendency to save money by cutting the number of bedside nurses (Evans, 2006). According to Adele Waters, a survey of more than 1,000 nurse managers revealed that several have cut down the patient to nurse ratios to maintain the hospital budget. These nurse managers used techniques such as freezes on recruitment, nursing post cut, redistribution of staff, and reduced nurse to patient ratios. These actions have left the remaining nurse to work extra hard and have led to greater burn out rates (Waters, 2006). This kind of actions can jeopardize patients’ lives as well as put the hospital at risk for lawsuits. Employment of nurses often cost the healthcare facilities a good deal of money; however, lawsuits usually result in a greater amount of monetary damage as well as creating a bad reputation (Garretson, 2004).
As mentioned above, patient care is the priority of the healthcare facilities. Having an inadequate nurse to patient ratios result in a reduced quality of care. Patients have reported decreased in satisfaction and nurses reported unsatisfactory patients’ outcomes. Researchers have found that poor nurse to patient ratios often result in an increased length of stay and post-operative complications, such as septicemia, urinary tract infections, etc (Garretson, 2004). One study revealed that the difference from four to six patients per nurse would increase the mortality by 14% and the difference from four to eight patients would increase it by 31%. This study also concluded that the odd of burnout for nurses is 23%, which in turn might result in a decrease in the number of working nurses. It is very important to keep the nurse to patient ratios in a manageable level to reduce burnout and job dissatisfaction, which is a precursor to nurses getting out of the healthcare industry (high patient, 2002). Mandated nurse to patient ratios is important in the healthcare industry. Poor quality of patient care and much stress for nurses resulted because of increased nurse to patient ratios.
References
Evans, Melanie. (2006). Nurse-ratio fight goes national. Modern Healthcare. Retrieved March 15, 2007, from EBSCO database.
Garretson, Sharon. (2004). Nurse to patient ratios in American health care. Nursing Standard. Retrieved March 15, 2007, from EBSCO Database.
High patient-to-nurse ratios in hospital associated with more patient deaths. (2002) Managedhealthcare.info. Retrieved March 15,2007, from Thompson Gale Database.
Waters, Adele. (2006). Trusts’ cost-saving tricks send nurse to patient ratios tumbling. Nursing Standard. Retrieved March 15,2007, from EBSCO Database.
