Nurse Patient Ratio

Nurse to Patient Ratio as it Affects Nurse Retention Nurse to patient ratios, unsafe staffing, and job satisfaction are topics on many nursing units within the hospitals today. The changes in the nurse to patient ratios, has led to a widespread real and perceived increase in RN workload, patient safety concerns, and nurse and consumer complaints. As a nurse leader, it has been noted there is an increased nurse turnover rate. What is it like for bedside medical-surgical registered nurses (P) to experience a 1:4 nurse to patient ratio (I) compared to 1:6 ratio (C) that leads to increase nurse retention (O)?

Problem Statement and EBP Question Hospital administrators need to focus on changing the staffing matrix across units within the facility.

After narrowing them down, the key factors that contributed the most to staff nurse retention were having nursing leaders, who created a trusting environment, fostered nurse empowerment that allows staff nurses to have more input in decision making, and upheld lower patient ratios. In order to incorporate these evidences into practices, protocols are to be implemented. Faculty in a leadership role should be adequately trained on how to be open for changes, willingness to accept information from outside sources, have a formal training on leadership skills, and allow for staff to speak in confidentiality about their viewpoints. Evaluating the effectiveness of the clinical guidelines, nurses are expected to provide comprehensive feedback through one-on-one interview and evaluation form. Patient care satisfaction tool will also be utilized to evaluate the care provided while the guidelines are being

During the interview process, the manager will check the candidate’s credentials, ask questions to assess whether a candidate would be able to handle an open-door policy, and offer a class or module to train on good leadership skills with follow-up evaluation. Retaining nurses was the chief issue that was monitored in the group analysis of the review. The most common among the articles revealed that nurses prefer a lower nurse to patient ratio. It would allow them to have more one-on-one time with the patient, therefore providing better care. Protocols should be implemented hospital-wide. No more than four patients to one nurse at any time and if a nurse is in a high-risk area, protocol will adjust so that a nurse will have no more than 2 patients at a time. This protocol would go into effect over a 6-month to 1-year time span, beginning January 1st to January 1st of the following year to allow the hospital to hire more staff. To ensure there is no collapse in staffing, protocols would go into effect one unit at a time. Travel nurses will be hired as well as an increased hiring of newly graduate nurses to offset current practice from 6:1 patient to nurse ratios to 4:1 in order to have adequate staff. Another way to promote nurse retention is to encourage staff nurses to have more active input in decision making, such as allowing them to