The data collected was over four weeks, from May 11, 2015 to June 5, 2015. Ten hours days four days a week for a total of 160 hours. The average patient volume assigned to the nurse was 8-10 per day. The method of recording was checks made on a calendar with brief notations of the conversation between the nurse and the patient care technician. CHECK (C)
The Effects of Working the Night Shift, written by Julia Tortorice, is an article about it affects health or nurses and how it affects their families. The author also mentions that currently acts are pending to improve staffing and the overall health of nurses. The author successfully uses humor and the logical appeal of pathos to make it easier to understand. She also gives advice of what a nurse can do which will help me brain storm my solutions in my paper. For instance, Tortorice (2014) says, “Studies have suggested that napping nurses suffer from less fatigue than non-napping nurses” (p. 3).
The idea of shift work is a common one, but for nurses this is not a simple changing of staff during a certain time, change of shift signifies a time of purposeful communication between nurses and patients, in order to promote patient safety and best practices (Caruso, 2007). During this time, there is the possibility for this critical opportunity to relay important information to become disorganized by extraneous information, rather than concentrating on the needs of the patient (Sullivan, 2010). Often the patient is left out of the conversation, and is not a part of the process. Patients and families can play an important role in making sure these transitions in care are safe and effective (AHRQ, 2013).
Mandatory overtime is an issue faced by many nurses across the nation. It is seen as a solution to the nursing shortage crisis; however, it is not a sustainable solution as it has led to an increase in medical errors, increased patient mortality, decreased job satisfaction, nurse fatigue, and deficits in nurse’s work performance. Several states have enacted or are considering laws to prohibit this problem. According to Rubenfire, “This is something that's been going on in hospitals for a very long time,” Ruben noted. “But it is not as focused on as much in the past.”
During the extended hospital stay, the cost of treatment also increases, sometimes by about 61 percent of the normal charges for treatment (Guse et al., 2015). Evidence based practice has shown evidence that hourly rounding can decrease the general hospital stay significant while at the same time cutting down the cost of treatment through reduction of falls. Nurses against this change complain of increased commitment on other duties, making it difficult for them to attend to their patients within the hour (Marquis & Huston, 2015). It should, however, be understood that hourly rounding may never be successful without teamwork. The absence of one nurse during the hourly rounding should be substituted by another nurse without regular complaints about personal patients.
• Day shift – night shift: conflicts related to differing staffing ratios; which shift works harder/is more challenging; tasks being left for the opposite shift to complete • Finance – nursing: nursing feeling like finance is looking to them to do everything cheaper and constantly having to do more with less; staffing concerns; when nursing staff is viewed as a cost to the organization; money spent on things that nursing sees as unnecessary compared to other things they value more. (Matthews, 2012). 3. Using salient points you took from the vignettes above, can you identify new ways to create new and better relationships within the
Moreover, several studies have been conducted to examine the effects of low nurse staffing on patients hospitalization experiences, as well as its effect on nurse careers in the long run. A recent study by Frith, Anderson, Tseng, and Fong (2012) to explore the relationship between nurse staffing and medication errors, demonstrated that medication errors were higher in a cardiac care unit and non-cardiac care unit when staffing levels were lower. In addition, Frith et al. (2012) pointed out that medication errors increase by 18% for every 20% decrease in nurse staffing below the average due to failure to follow medication administration protocol As mentioned earlier, nurses perform the last and the most important step of medication administration. Thus, having adequate time to assess each patient efficiently and following the medication rights is critical to provide safe patient care and prevent errors.
Secondly, communicating with co-workers that the evening shift is under staffed. Implementing that each shift start with a team huddle to provide effective communication and team building. The company at the assisted living facility should do the following: update to electronic medication administration records (eMARs), obtain scanning devices for medications, or create a new system in which the medication is administered to the client at the bedside. Lastly, the CM should start the shift by planning the evening and prioritizing most important duties that need to be completed by the end of the shift. Planning is extremely important and can help a person under a lot of stress stay calm and organized.
Since I have many friends who are nurses, I know about the life of a nurse. Although they were working and caring for their patients, I could hear how hard they work. As Madelyn said, “Nurses work four days a week for 12-hours shifts.” As one may guess a 12-hour shift is not exactly 12 hours, but 12-hours shifts are usually 14-hour. I know that sometimes nurses may find themselves putting in overtime or being called in when staffing is short.
As shown by the quote, having the medical residents work longer then 24-hour shifts are dangerous for both the residents and the patients. First year doctors should not work more than 24-hours because they would be too exhausted, too inexperienced to stay
Short staffing is one of the many challenges nurses encounter in the work environment. The impacts can be detrimental primarily to the patient’s outcome. To examine the effects of short staffing, research was conducted on 36,539 hospital inpatients to evaluate the amount of those exposed to an understaffed shift and how many patient outcomes resulted in a NSO (Twigg, Gelder, & Myers, 2015). NSO’s are nurse sensitive outcomes based on the nursing care provided to the patient. Patients exposed to short staffing had an increase of greater than one chance of NSO’s compared to patients not exposed (Twigg et al., 2015).
Large patient loads combined with a stressful work environment affects nurses’ abilities to provide quality healthcare. Patient safety should never be compromised. It is our responsibility to learn from research and improve our current nurse staffing ratios. Nurse staffing is key and affects all other outcomes. Without nurses administering the right treatment at the right time to the right patients, all other healthcare interventions are not effective.
Nurses play an essential role in the healthcare industry. The nurse workforce is made up of licensed nurses: registered nurses (RNs), licensed vocational nurses (LVNs) and licensed practical nurses (LPNs), along with nurse aides. Registered nurses are responsible for assessments of patients’ needs, development of care plans, medication administration, and treatments, while licensed vocational nurses perform specific care under the delegation of the registered nurses and supervisions. Nursing aides perform activities of daily living (unskilled attention) to the patient. Adequate nursing staffing is essential to both patient care and outcomes, also to the retention of nurses while inadequate staffing creates problems for both the patients and
During a clinical shift, I would be responsible for providing care to patients with malignant hematological diseases, completing pertinent assessments and teaching skills, such as how to care for the mouth when experiencing mucositis and how to avoid infections. Self-reflection on Professional Practice All nurses registered in the general and extended classes are required to complete their self-Assessment every year. Self-Assessment is a self-directed, two-part process that results in a learning plan (CNO self assessment 2018). Through the process of self-assessment, you identify your areas of strength and learning needs (CNO
Nurses fatigue is growing problem nurse face each day in the healthcare environment, and he can be caused by long hours, sleep deprivation, and possibly by accepting extra assignments can be dangerous for both nurses and patient. These inadequacies can result in major implications for the health and safety of registered nurses and can compromise patient care which can lead to fatalities. (American Nurses Association, 2014). In my experience, being fatigued from working much 12-hour shifts consecutively was very difficult as I felt extremely tired, resulting in lack of focus, missing important details during the handing over the process with impaired cognitive functioning. This I found was detrimental to the patients and myself as it impedes quality and has a deleterious effect on patient safety.
