Introduction
Nurses are important personnel in the health care industry. However, some problems occur while offering patient care despite nurses trying to avoid them. Such difficulties could be caused by many factors and lead to medical costs skyrocketing (Sherman & Pross, 2010). Some of the causative aspects include medication errors and lack of assessment and follow-up to mention a few. It is, therefore, the obligation of nurses and other stakeholders to evade these problems since they could bring complications in the patient’s safety and cause unnecessary expenditures.
Summary
The problems that nurses experience in their daily activities may have a subsequent effect on the cost of care (Sherman & Pross, 2010). While some factors can be avoided, others cannot and the patients, in addition to institutions that operate in the nursing industry, have to bear the costs. The endeavor to avoid some negative aspects could require the working environment to be restructured in an attempt to provide better health care at lower prices (Thungjaroenkul, Cummings, & Embleton, 2007). Many of the problems that affect the nurses are of an ethical nature. Nurses could be faced with dilemmas on what cause of action to take and are sometimes not able to make the right decisions, which makes them cause harm to the patients or strain the budget as the hospitals try to rectify the mistakes that they create. The audiences of the two articles are nurses and stakeholders in the health care sector. To avoid unnecessary costs in patient care, nurses ought to consult widely and fast prior to taking actions about which they are dubious.
Synthesis and Analysis
Families may end up using the health facilities for neglect. The facilities may be forced to pay a huge amount of money thus making them lack the finances required to develop (Sherman & Pross, 2010). Both articles concur that the assessment of the problem may lead to stretches in the budget since the facilities could require many nurses and other personnel to evaluate properly and carry a follow-up on the effects on the patients and their wellbeing. It is clear that in order for the facilities to have the proper number of staff to care for the patients, they might require to spend a hefty amount of money in recruiting the personnel, which could eventually lead to a negative effect on the budget.
In the era of restricted health care funding and the rising medical costs, many facilities have been forced to reconstruct the working environment in an effort to increase the quality of care (Thungjaroenkul et al., 2007). This is done to make sure that the assessment and follow-up processes are done perfectly. The process of nurse staffing has posed a subject difficult to explain since the higher the number of nurses in a particular facility the more easily and effectively care will be administered to the patients. However, some facilities have been compelled to lower the number of staff due to their low budget.
Critical Analysis
Since the information in the articles has been researched by many authors, it offers a crucial insight into the reduction of medical costs and the burden they lay on the patients and their family members. The articles have affirmed that the more registered nurses there are in a particular hospital, the more satisfied the patients are and the lower the mortality rate. This is because the facilities that do not have enough nurses suffer increased failure to rescue patients, and many of them end up dying. This may be attributed to the lack of proper assessment of the needs of the patients, their feelings, and the symptoms they are experiencing (Sherman & Pross, 2010). Furthermore, there is a great need to lower the likelihood of medical errors.
Application
When a certain facility has an adequate number of registered nurses, the patients are at ease since they are looked after appropriately, and they are given proper attention. This also has an influence on the amount of time that the patients stay in the hospitals. Therefore, when there are enough nurses available, the recovery time is reduced and the patients are quickly discharged, which makes the hospital able to admit more patients who are in need of health care and reduces the cost of care. It is evident that the lack of proper assessment and care can lead to severe implications on the patients’ health. However, to ensure this does not happen, the way forward would be to ensure that the patients have an adequate number of caregivers to meet their needs and analyze their progress (Dunham-Taylor & Pinczuk, 2006).
Conclusion
It is apparent that the problems experienced in various facilities have diverse implications for both the budget of the hospitals and the patients. The hospitals will have to meet the cost of staff, activities, and the supplies that they need to ensure that the nurses are well-equipped for the job. Similarly, the patients will be compelled to pay unnecessarily higher medical costs. Therefore, the problems of inaccurate assessment, lack of follow-up, and poor care are not only caused by the shortage of staff but also the lack of the proper instruments to ensure that the patients get first-rate care. Strategies should be implemented to overcome the problems with the purpose of reducing the cost of care.
References
Dunham-Taylor, J., & Pinczuk, J. Z. (2006). Health care financial management for nurse managers: Merging the heart with the dollar. Burlington, US: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Sherman, R., & Pross, E. (2010). Growing future nurse leaders to build and sustain healthy work environments at the unit level. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 15(1), 4.
Thungjaroenkul, P., Cummings, G. G., & Embleton, A. (2007). The impact of nurse staffing on hospital costs and patient length of stay: A systematic review. Nursing Economics, 25(5), 255.