Acuity Based Staffing In Nursing

Capstone Exploration: Staffing Ratios

Patient satisfaction and patient outcomes vary within components of the hospital setting. Amongst the many health care providers, nurses have obligations to ensure safety, stability, and care equally to everyone. According to American Nurses Association (2016), there is a Registered Nurse Staffing Act which provides guidelines and reasoning behind significance of adequate nursing staff in each facility. In order to be effective and equal between each patient, appropriate staffing must be accessible. It is imperative for staff to be equipped with safe working conditions, minimal overtime, and competent skill and education. To achieve this, an appropriate nurse/patient ratio is vital. However, controversy

However, the house supervisor and charge nurses responsible for staffing must consider more than just how long it takes to do certain nursing tasks. Breaking down nursing into individual tasks runs the risk of undermining the full scope of nursing practice. Instead, acuity-based staffing should consider the scope of nursing and the time needed to maintain standards of practice. It must give nurses time to perform all functions within their scope. In addition to considering the scope of nursing required, the patient characteristics need to be considered as well. Not all patients with the same disease or disorder have the same needs. Individual differences can dramatically change the amount of time needed to plan a procedure, a discharge or provide patient education. Age, diagnosis, orientation, comorbidities and available family support are just a few additional factors that should be considered. Due to the downfalls that must be considered with each staffing model, it would be beneficial for a combination of the models to be used. Using a combination of all the models discussed, would increase patient satisfaction and patient safety while preventing nurse burnout and mandated overtime, factors that greatly influence the nursing

These changes require transforming the beliefs and practices of nurses and the organization management to practice as one solid unit. To successfully implement change initiatives, organizational leaders must identify the need for change and communicate it throughout the organization. When discussing the proposed staffing ratio model change, all levels of management will need to be involved for a smooth transition. Factors such as patient safety, nurse retention, and financial stability will need to be discussed and reviewed. For an effective change to occur, leaders must actively involve the people most affected by the change in its implementation. This will help ensure employees at all levels of the organization embrace the proposed changes. Within CTMC, nurses rely on their department directors to ensure their voices are heard when any change is proposed. Once the proposal is discussed with the department director, she presents the proposal to her director to ensure the chain of command is followed. Once the proposal reaches the top of the command, a collaboration of all parties is involved to implement the proposed change. A report from The Institute of Medicine (IOM) calls on nurses to take a greater role in America’s increasingly