Problem Identification
The unbalanced nurse-to-patient ratio is a critical concern affecting healthcare service quality. Nurses play a crucial role in providing patient care through evidence-based practice. However, the proportion of nurses to patients in most healthcare organizations portrays a shortage of nurse practitioners. The healthcare sector is currently debating the establishment of a standard global nurse-to-patient ratio to enhance patient care. Few nurses serving many patients within a particular time characterize the problem of the nurse-to-patient balance. The problem reduces the time nurses spend with a single attend to listen to every patient seeking clinical services. Nurses who attend to many patients have higher chances of making clinical errors because of confusion. Patients who lack adequate nurse care are exposed to safety risks, such as patient falls, which result in poor health outcomes. The COVID-19 pandemic period was an example of a scenario when the healthcare sector experienced the worst impact of the nurse-to-patient ratio. Mitigating the nurse-to-patient balance will allow the healthcare sector to improve patient satisfaction, reduce medical errors, nurse burnout and fatigue, patient falls and mortalities, and enhance hospital administration.
The nurse-to-patient ratio is a current problem in our healthcare institutions and many hospitals across the United States. The current shortage of qualified nurse practitioners has adversely impacted the safety of patients and nurses. Nurse shortages have exposed existing nurses to a heavy patient workload, preventing them from providing quality care. Nurses should give individualized care because different patients have unique medical complications. Adequate time and resources are required to provide quality healthcare services in the clinical setting. However, nurse shortages force nurses to attend to patients quickly to satisfy every individual. Providing quick healthcare services to many patients exposes nurses to clinical errors. Nurses attending to an excessive number of patients make errors in medication, miss appointments, and make patient safety and care errors (Carthon et al., 2019). The mistakes that nurses make because of nurse shortages expose the patients to risks of poor health outcomes. The problem of the nurse-to-patient ratio is a critical healthcare concern that adversely impacts patient safety while delivering clinical services. Stakeholders should develop strategies for mitigating the concern to improve the quality of healthcare services.
The nurse-to-patient ratio is also a critical healthcare concern that adversely impacts nurse practitioners’ safety while delivering clinical services. Nurse shortages in healthcare institutions expose nurses to heavy workloads, influencing nurse burnout. Nurse burnout is a response to work-related stress caused by fatigue and exhaustion. Healthcare institutions have exposed nurses to 12-hour shifts, draining the practitioners’ energy and motivation toward work. Some clinical stressors that influence nurse burnout among practitioners include long working hours, quick medical decision-making pressure, and poor health outcomes among patients (Carthon et al., 2019). Nursing stressors make practitioners feel disengaged while providing clinical services. Nurse burnout exposes nurses to physical and mental impacts. Physical exhaustion drains the practitioners’ energy and affects the optimal growth and development of the nurses. If not addressed, nurse burnout can also harm the nurses’ mental health through feelings of depression and hopelessness in providing healthcare services. Therefore, the problem of the nurse-to-patient ratio is critical because it influences nurse burnout, affecting nurse practitioners’ safety.
Recommendation
Optimal and strategic nurse practitioner staffing is a quality improvement (QI) recommendation that can mitigate the nurse-patient ratio concern in healthcare institutions. Healthcare institution management should incorporate effective staffing techniques to enhance the quality of evidence-based services and patient satisfaction. Staffing models should consider the population of patients who require healthcare services to determine the number of nurse practitioners who can adequately attend to the population. Quality staffing models allow a nurse to provide services to a manageable number of patients and establish a productive nurse-patient relationship. Strategic nurse practitioner staffing focuses on empowering nurses to develop flexible working plans. Nurse leaders should create working plans that allow nurses to rest between shifts to prevent burnout. Flexible working plans influence the optimum nurse-patient ratio because nurses work for a limited time and attend to a few patients. Therefore, reducing the long working hours is also a critical recommendation for the problem of the nurse-patient ratio.
Strategic nurse recruitment is a quality improvement recommendation that enhances healthcare quality and improves the nurses’ welfare. Effective nurse staffing improves healthcare quality by increasing nurse attention toward the patients. The current healthcare sector encourages nurses to provide patient-centered healthcare services. Nurses can achieve patient-centered care by acknowledging patients’ opinions and suggestions when making healthcare decisions. Optimal staffing allows nurses to establish personal relationships with the patients to provide them with quality care. Strategic nurse staffing is also a quality improvement recommendation because it safeguards the safety of the patients and nurses by reducing clinical errors and nurse burnout. Quality improvement recommendations are critical in achieving the objectives of the healthcare sector. World Health Organization aims to provide quality and affordable healthcare services to every individual across the globe. Incorporating optimal and strategic nurse staffing will increase patients’ access to quality healthcare services by reducing the congestion in the delivery of services.
Plan for Improvement
Healthcare stakeholders should establish strategic plans to mitigate the nurse-patient ratio problem. The first step in the improvement plan is establishing quality improvement goals in the clinical setting. The objective of optimal and strategic staffing is to achieve an optimum nurse-patient ratio by reducing nurse shortages in healthcare institutions. Establishing practical goals is critical in determining the impact of the recommendations on healthcare quality. After selecting the purposes of the quality improvement recommendation, stakeholders should identify possible strategies for implementation. Management can implement optimal staffing in healthcare institutions by establishing adequate departments and units that provide clinical services. Specialized units will prevent congestion in healthcare and solve the concern of the nurse-patient ratio. Identifying possible implementation strategies is the second step in the improvement plan.
The third step in the improvement plan is to select specific interventions and implement them in the healthcare setting. Healthcare institutions can implement optimal staffing by increasing the number of specialized nurses to work in the specialized units established in the institutions. The management of health institutions should also develop flexible working conditions for nurses to prevent fatigue and nurse burnout. The final step in the improvement plan is assessing the implemented strategies’ impact. The management should ensure that the implemented changes align with the mission and vision of the healthcare sector. The changes should also align with the available resources in the healthcare institution, such as finances to pay the additional nurse practitioners and adequate space to accommodate the other workers. Assessment allows healthcare institutions to amend the optimal staffing plan to reduce any challenges that can prevent quality improvement. The plan for quality improvement is critical in mitigating the nurse shortage in United States healthcare institutions.
Reference
Carthon, J. M. B., Davis, L., Dierkes, A., Hatfield, L., Hedgeland, T., Holland, S., & Aiken, L. H. (2019). Association of nurse engagement and nurse staffing on patient safety. Journal of Nursing Care Quality, 34(1), 40. Web.