Making a Change in Nursing

Nurse Ratio

Lowering the Nurse/Patient Ratio: A simple Step for Improving Care

Nursing is far from a static profession or discipline, and is in fact in a constant state of progression and change. Not all of these changes are necessarily for the better; increased healthcare demands, decreased abilities to pay for many patients and institutions, and a host of other factors can contribute to negative changes in the nursing work environment. When such factors arise it becomes all the more important for effective nursing researchers and practitioners to identify and advocate positive changes to the practice and the profession of nursing that can help combat the negative factors and ensure a consistent quality of care. In the current era of an ongoing shortage of nurses n the face of increasing demand and the approaching depletion of available nurses due to the aging population of nurses themselves, addressing the nurse-to-patient ratio that is currently accepted as a guideline and practice policy in many institutions is an excellent example of the type of evidence-based and positive change that can be implemented in nursing practice.

Instead of the current standard of a nurse-to-patient ratio of one to six, I would like to see the standard changed to a ratio of one to four. Several studies have shown that when nurses are dealing with smaller patient loads, either due to increased nursing staff in a single department or increased spread of patients amongst departments, the quality of care for patients can be improved, sometimes drastically (Adomat et al., 2004; Kane et al., 2007). By reducing patient load, the attention and care that nurses can provide to each individual patient will be increased, and nursing satisfaction can be improved as well (Kane et al., 2007).

The collaborative skills that will be necessary to achieve this desired change are extensive, and include both communication skills and a high degree of emotional intelligence coupled with no small amount of restraint. There are actually some specific areas identified in the literature wherein a smaller number of patients per nurse has actually led to reduced quality of care and adherence to recommended procedures and practices, and this evidence must be acknowledged with understanding and patience while also being met with countermeasures that can effectively deal with any potential negative outcomes (Hassan, 2009). The ability to see things from an administrative point-of-view and no small amount of logical and financial reasoning will also be necessary in order to effectively collaborate with all stakeholders and decision makers that would be involved in such a change.