Hospital Nurse Staffing Paper

Eulau & Prewitt describe policy as a “standing decisions” made by an organization (Milstead, 2016). The Healthcare policy gives the clarity and guidance to run the health care system safely with policies and procedures. It helps the institution in making decisions, improving the productivity and achieving the desired goal. Today, I am going to discuss the policy of enforcing the Hospital Nurse staffing regulations across the United States. The need for the Hospital Nurse staffing was made when different studies showed that there is inadequate care in the hospitals and safety of patients were questioned. Therefore, the Nurse staffing regulation was established to provide adequate staffing to provide high-quality care and safety. According to

The committee develops and recommends nursing staffing plans to the hospital governing body. Moreover, the committee measures and evaluate the effectiveness of care via the quality indicators, nurse satisfaction measures and evidence-based nurse staffing standards. Moreover, US Federal government (via 42 codes of Federal regulation), hospitals certified to participate in Medicare should have adequate staffing for the patient safety (Shin, Koh, Kim, Le, & Son, 2018). As per ANA legislative model helps nurses to create staffing plan specific to each unit. It gives the flexibility to change due to the intensity of the patients, admissions, discharges, transfers, and availability of ancillary staff (ONS, 2016). By analyzing the policy to the hospital where I worked, it seems that somehow the hospital is jeopardizing the safety of the patient and quality care of patients. As our floor patients are mostly bedridden, high acuity, geriatrics medical/ surgical and oncology patients. The staffing classification is based on the number of patients to the number of nurses. It does not show the acuity of the patients. However, sometimes, the charge nurse speaks up for the nurses, but it depends on supervisor’s to keep the extra nurse, send her home or put on

He described “how the issue gets on the political agenda, and, once there, how alternative solutions are devised.” He further explains the four concepts, i.e. three streams: policy, problem and political and the window of opportunity. According to him the problem (an issue), policy (an alternative that can be implemented) and the political issue ( politician willing to make a change in the policy). When these streams get aligned, then the window of opportunity opens and its time to take action(Milstead, 2016). The model seems well fit in the nurse staffing regulation. The problem is the issue of the nurse-patient ratio which is causing adverse effects on the health care delivery and the health providers. Now its time to bring a change in staffing regulations by collecting data and producing quality research to support the evidenced based outcome of the nurse-patient ratio and its effects on the patients and the providers. By doing this, recommendations can be made for the minimum nurse-patient ratio which has been seen useful in the state of California, and many researches have been done and showed the positive outcomes which have been discussed in the discussion. In addition to that, all the nurses should be involved in lobbying e.g. join the professional organization, writing papers, attending nursing organization meetings. Nurses can advocate for themselves and patients for in an effective manner. Moreover, the involvement of