Staffing By Acuity vs. Staffing By Numbers

Staffing By Acuity vs. Staffing By Numbers
Institution
Date
Abstract
An appropriate nurse staffing is a critical element in health facilities that ensures the safety and well-being of the patients and caregivers. According many people’s views, health organization that have inadequate staffing level experience staffing malpractices such as medication errors, falls, respiratory infections, and an increase in heart attacks among other things. A recent study in a health facility revealed that a patient risks dying within the first 30 days of admission in a health institution in the event that they are added to a nurse’s workload that passes a particular point. This view holds that inadequacies in staffing levels, has led to many nurses spending less or no time with their patients due to excessive busy units (Armstrong-Stassen, Cameron, Rajacich, & Freeman, 2014).
It is against this backdrop that it is significant to point out that this view has been challenged by many health institutions. It is imperative to realize that when an institution of health staffs its nurses according to numbers, it would mean that all their patients require the same care methods regardless of the complexities and illnesses they have. When staffing is done on the basis of numbers, nurses are likely to experience depletions in morale, burnouts a factor that leads to higher levels of staff absenteeism. This also clearly shows the intensity of this problem and, therefore, indicates that a change should be enacted through the introduction of a nursing structure through acuity in order to decrease instances of burnout and increase the satisfaction of patients.
In order to develop a sustainable change that ensures the safe practice within the nursing fraternity, there are several factors that need to be incorporated to finding a solution (Armstrong-Stassen, Cameron, Rajacich, & Freeman, 2014). These factors include investing in approaches that clearly define how to incorporate acuity in staffing, an improvement in healthcare delivery systems and the development of policies and regulations that ensure health facilities adhere to the frameworks of proper staffing. Finding a solution to this requires a collaborative effort among the nurses and their leaders, the government, healthcare executives, media and the leaders in the education field.
Introduction
Nurse staffing levels are affected by a number of external factors that range from staffing by numbers as opposed to acuity. Due to the recession, many health institutions have cut down on the number of nurses they employ, a factor that widely affected the delivery of services to patients (Armstrong-Stassen. et.al). Due to this staffing approach, health institutions are bound to offer services that may not meet the needs of their patients.
In regards to this there are legislative efforts that have been developed to address the issue of nurse staffing thus mandating institutions to consider revising the nurse-patient ratios and also developing reporting systems to ensure that there are proper principles for staff practitioners in the health sector (Armstrong-Stassen. et.al). However, due to the diversity in the healthcare setup and the traditional views of how staffing approaches should be incorporated, and the complexities that come with this issue, solutions are likely to be effectual.
An effective nurse staffing layout is one that takes into account certain variables such as unit layouts, patient’s perspicacity, patient’s complexities and supplementary support in determining the suitable skills, experience, number, specialized training and education of its nurses in a given unit. It is significant to realize that a change should be enacted in the health systems that focus on improving and enhancing nurse staffing not based on number but acuity.
Sound nurse staffing is not solely based on the numbers, but on acuity and also requires that health organizations develop long-term commitment that empower and appreciates the practicing nurses within a facility (Armstrong-Stassen. et.al). This paper, therefore, pursues approaches of bringing changes in the health organizations in developing proper frameworks that can ensure that staffing is done effectively in order to improve patient outcomes and reduce the liabilities that come with this problem.
Overview of the Change Project
Nurse-to-patient ratios have posed a challenge for many hospitals for quite a period of time. Many hospitals have gone to the point of advocating for the number of nurses required for certain levels of care, a factor that has not been well received in health care industry. It is imperative to realize that when an institution of health staffs its nurses according to numbers, it would mean that all their patients require the same care methods regardless of the complexities and illnesses they have (Buerhaus, Donelan, Ulrich, Norman, Desroches, & Dittus, 2007). This has seen hospitals make changes in their restructuring systems that intend to decrease the costs associated with large and huge staffing with the aim of increasing productivity. These initiatives have highly affected the effectiveness of clinical care and patient outcomes.
Staffing by numbers has been predicted to be intense and severe than has been experienced in the past, a factor that causes the strategies implemented by employees to have limited success. Institutions that apply the approaches of staffing by numbers experience difficulties in their staffs with their staffs having difficulties in coping with the increase in workloads. Due to this, they remain victims of adverse contributory factors to dangerous, poor and inappropriate standards in care (Buerhaus, et.al).
Nurses and nurse managers, therefore, remain frustrated by the lack of better approaches that can solve this malady. A recent study in a health facility revealed that a patient risks dying within the first 30 days of admission in a health institution in the event that they are added to a nurse’s workload that passes a particular point (McHugh, 2010). This explains the reason why staffing by numbers is an ineffective approach in the health care facilities.
The desired future is in solving this problem is mainly by deriving and formulating the acuity recruiting procedure. Staffing by acuity involves the categorization of patients according to classes with the aim of representing the needs of care. Through the use of a mathematical prediction, it is easier to determine the amount of nursing care that should be given to each and every patient (Chan, Tam, Lung, Wong,& Chau, 2013). This approach has been incorporated to control the rising costs of patient care through the properly formulated models that determine the appropriate staffing levels. The system therefore refines the approaches used in the health sector by identifying nursing needs as well as he patients too and finding better approaches that can meet these needs. Through this, accountability at all levels of the organization is shared in the delivery of quality patient care that is cost-effective.
History of the Situation
Over time, studies have revealed that the quality of nursing care in any health institution would decrease in the event that the number of patients assigned to nurses increased. However, there are some views concerning this that also determine that there are less patient complaints when the number of nurses are increased to attend to each and every patient (Chan, et.al). The variations in the staffing methods remain a determinant in patient outcomes.
There have been a lot of issues relating to nurse-to-patient ratios. Many hospitals believe that nursing in an institution should be done on the account of numbers as compared to ratios. However, staffing by numbers has raised a considerable number of issues within the health fraternity. Staffing today is viewed as the appropriation of resources that are in tandem to the needs of patients. It is therefore imperative to realize that all patients require care according to the levels of their illnesses and complexities (Chan, et.al). Due to the fact that many institutions prefer staffing by numbers, nurses encounter challenges such as poor performance at work places due to burnouts.
The burnout syndrome is a problem that is encountered within a work environment and is described as an emotional exhaustion in which an individual experiences emotional overload as a result of workloads, Nurses who experience workloads suffer from psychosomatic problems that result in weaknesses and attitudinal problems that affect their response to patients. Patients are prone to suffer out of this since the quality of health services deteriorates. Due to heavy workloads, nurses experience burnout syndromes that affect their productivity within their work environments (Kusserow, 2012). The paper will examine the factors into the causes of approaches of nursing and review the impacts associated with this, also examining the long and short-term solutions into this problem in order to improve the performance and quality of patients and the nurse’s lives.
Rationale or Reason to Implement Change
When nurses are staffed according to numbers in a healthcare unit, a negative impact follows. According to sources, it is imperative to realize that in most cases this leads to poor quality services delivery in a hospital. Health facilities are out of this forced to consider overtimes while adding excess nursing responsibilities to the nurse’s workloads, a factor that leads to burnouts. Some of the nurses are even shifted from one unit into the other, factors that result in the compromised state of the quality of services offered to patients, and also decreases the job satisfaction levels of nurses (Kusserow, 2012).
This explains the reasons why such personnel lack the engagement and commitment in their job functions (Kusserow, 2012). Out of this, a need to develop and implement change was identified. The rationale behind this change focused approach is ...