Nurse staffing is a significant region of worry because it can place a strain on patient safety as well as quality of patient care. With cost effectiveness in mind, hospital administrations have elected to reduce nursing staffing ratios and substitute licensed nurses using cheaper unlicensed personnel. This increases uneasiness as the quality of care in hospitals might be undesirably reduced. The necessity to evaluate nurse staffing is essential.
The bulk of the investigative studies examined were cross-sectional in nature as research was completed by means of vast hospital administrative data to detect connections amongst nurse staffing ratios and patient outcomes. One study by Zhu et al. (2012) examined the connection of nursing practice on patient satisfaction which was an attainable positive result.
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A report by the Agency for Healthcare and Quality in America projected that hospitals involving increased levels of Registered Nurse (RN) staffing showed decreased degrees of substandard patient outcomes and increased nurse staffing ratios were linked with a 2% to 25% decrease in substandard outcomes (Mark & Stanton, 2010). As a result, education on nurse staffing and the influence on quality of patient care warrants evidence based decision on existing and forthcoming practices.
The influence of nurse staffing ratios on quality of care has been observed in four studies. Hospitals using decreased levels of nursing staff faced a 7% escalation in 30-day mortality and a 7% escalation in failure-to-rescue. This data was reinforced by an additional study done by Zhu et al. in 2012 that recognized, while nurse-to-patient ratio lessened, patient outcomes