Within this statement is a double standard. How can we have quality nurses and cut costs at the same time? This is where the skill mix comes into play. In the skill mix, there are Registered Nurses (RNs), Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs), and unlicensed staff. If the lesser skilled staff free RNs they can be better able to perform their nursing duties and assessments. If acute care facilities can agree on an appropriate number of each type of staff member within the facility, they might be better able to accomplish safe patient outcomes while keeping costs down.
Determining nurse-to-patient ratios is a complex issue where one solution is not sufficient to cover all circumstances. The American Nurses Association assembled a panel of nursing and health professionals to research appropriate staffing levels. The panel developed the following Matrix for Staffing Decision-Making (Table 1) in three major areas.
Table 1. Matrix for Staffing Decision-Making
Matrix for Staffing Decision-Making
Items
Elements/Definitions
Patients
Patient characteristics and number of patients for whom care is being provided
Intensity of unit and care
Individual patient intensity; across the unit intensity (taking into account the heterogeneity of settings); variability of care; admissions, discharges and transfers; volume
Context
Architecture (geographic dispersion of patients, size and layout of individual patient rooms, arrangement of entire patient care unit(s), and so forth); technology (beepers, cellular phones, computers); same unit or cluster of patients
Expertise
Learning curve for individuals and groups of nurses; staff consistency, continuity and cohesion; cross-training; control of practice; involvement in quality improvement activities; professional expectations; preparation and experience
Source: American Nurses Association (2005), 2005 Principles for Nurse Staffing, Retrieved December 6, 2006 at http://www.nursingworld.org/readroom/stffprnc.htm
Nurse Safety / Job Dissatisfaction
While nurse safety is a big concern, its goal is mostly to decrease the workload so the nurse can effectively care for patients. Aiken, Clarke, Sloane, Sochalski, and Silber (2002) reported that each additional patient assigned to a nurse was associated with a 23% increase in the odds of job burnout and a 15% increase in the possibility of job dissatisfaction. They also reported that 40%...
Nursing leadership is a much debated and much talked about subject when it comes to the broader paradigm of nursing and its practice. When speaking about nursing leadership, the author has been asked to focus on a specific subtopic of nursing such as nursing shortages, nurse turnover, nurse staffing ratios and unit closures. The author of this report shall focus on nursing shortages. The author, per the assignment, will compare
There is an ever growing demand for nurses in the Henderson area- an area that is already in short supply. The problems that Henderson is facing are very cyclical in nature. A lack of educational attainment in the area leads to a lack of trained professionals, like nurses. And yet with the high amount of drug usage that is going on in the area this is the one profession
In the analysis of the quantitative data, crude odds ratios were planned. Afterwards, a multinomial regression analysis was used (Pettersson, Linden-Bostrom and Eriksson, 2009). The qualitative analysis of obvious barriers was completed by using content analysis on the answers to the opened-ended questions that were in the questionnaires. There were 176 responses all that considered meaning units. The significance units were then reduced into shorter sentences without altering the basis
594 1.409 N Knowledge Pearson Correlation .117 1 Sig. (2-tailed) .128 Sum of Squares and Cross-products 42054.186 Covariance 1.409 N There is no statistically significant correlation between age of the participant and the self-assessed knowledge regarding the use of computers. Descriptive Statistics Mean Std. Deviation N Gender 1.92 .274 Experience 3.87 1.463 Correlations Gender Experience Gender Pearson Correlation 1 -.246** Sig. (2-tailed) .001 Sum of Squares and Cross-products 12.860 -16.872 Covariance .075 -.099 N Experience Pearson Correlation -.246** 1 Sig. (2-tailed) .001 Sum of Squares and Cross-products -16.872 Covariance -.099 2.140 N **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). There is a statistically significant correlation between the gender of the participant and their self-assessed degree of experience relating to the knowledge regarding
Boston Chicken, Inc. Scott Beck founded Boston Chicken in the year 1989 with the business idea of operating and franchising food service stores with the company's conception to combine fresh, palatable, and alluring meals concomitant with customary home cooking with a high level of expediency and value. In essence, the company was attempting to generate the setting for a consumer of obtaining and accessing a home cooked meal at a price
Childhood Obesity Focused on 6 to 11-Year-Olds in Tyler, Texas Obesity is associated with a condition of calorific imbalance in which the ratio of consumption of calories consumed and the ones expended is skewed such that the amount of the ones spent is much lower than the amount consumed. The condition is influenced by a range of factors that include genetics, behavioral patterns, and environmental influences. In data availed by
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