Nursing Home Staffing Report

IntroThe purpose of the article was to evaluate different factors in staffing that affect thequality of resident care in nursing homes. Through the use of data gathered from anumber of surveys and research articles (the majority of which use data from officiallysanctioned databases), several possible conclusions about quality nursing care havebeen drawn and considered. These conclusions are based upon three different factors:staffing measures, quality measures, and risk adjustment variables. For the most part, itseems that a higher licensed nursing staff has the greatest positive impact on quality ofcare with a direct a correlation suggesting that a larger staff will, on average, allow for ahigher quality of care. I would think that this is

The researchers in the article were able to use thisinformation to come up with 4 tables based on the themes of staffing measures, qualitymeasures, and risk adjustment variables. The first table reviews all staffing measuresfound to be used throughout the documents, the second lists all nursing home qualitymeasures that were used, the third describes various risk adjustment and controlvariables used, and the fourth identifies the data sources from which staffing or controlmeasures were obtained.The first theme, staffing measures, is used to refer to nurse staffing calculationsand range from number of staff per resident to overall staff turnover rates. The mostemphasis was placed on staff ratios (number of staff per resident), being that almosthalf of the total studies used some measure of staff-to-resident or staff-hours-to-residentratio in their findings. The studies were also split up between RNs, LPNs, CNAs, LVNsand total nursing staff to categorize differentiate what types of caregivers wereresponsible. Several studies show that higher total staffing levels had an associationwith a higher quality of care. There are a few inconsistencies in the study, as the staffingratios used consisted of staff per resident and staff per bed. However, varying resultsincluded, when compared to the second theme, quality measures, show that more staffusually resulted in fewer cases of pressure ulcers, losses of functional ability,inappropriate

The thirdtheme, risk adjustment/control measures, is used as a measure of adjustments made toattempt to control resident, facility, and economic statistics that could serve asextraneous factors influencing quality of care. These include facility characteristics, casemix, and market/economic characteristics.For Further StudyTo build upon the information found in this article, I would suggest to look into theindividual studies that were used and reviewed to make this article. One could alsoperform a study of their own if they have the means to access to similar statistics usedin the individual documents and articles used in the making of this article (though mostpeople will not have such opportunities).ConclusionFurther studies such as the ones mentioned in this article need to be conducted in thefuture to reinforce the findings of this particular research team. The work done was verythorough and it made an attempt to account for what they saw as the major factors innursing care related to staffing. Validation of accuracy is very important to a study suchas this, so more studies should be performed and reviewed in the same way this articlewas done. The findings of the team seem to make sense in how a higher number oflicensed staff would result in a higher quality of care, so it should be an easy topic tofollow up on using national databases and informational documents. I like the