[pickledpepperRN]

Hiring One Extra Nurse Might Help Hospitals Save Lives

If hospitals added one more full-time registered nurse on staff to care for patients, the number of hospital-related deaths in the United States could decrease significantly, according to a new review. However, cost concerns and a worsening nursing shortage might make this an unlikely scenario.

When asked how hospital administrators can be better made aware of these possible rates of improved patient outcomes, lead review author Robert Kane, M.D., said, “The issue is not making them aware of the possibility, it’s convincing them that it is in their best interests to act on it. From a business perspective, the savings in reduced lengths of stay would not offset the costs of the added staffing. The case would have to be made in terms of image and liability.”

The systematic review aimed to examine whether there was a link between a hospital’s registered nurse-to-patient ratio and the health outcome of the patients under their care.

Kane, of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and colleagues write that “nurses are crucial to providing high-quality care,” and “increasing the nurse-to-patient ratios has been recommended as a means to improve patient safety.”

http://www.newswise.com/p/articles/view/535663/

[wooh]

However, cost concerns and a worsening nursing shortage might make this an unlikely scenario.

Cost concerns are the main problem. Adding nurses will make nurses actually stay at the bedside.
I got blindsided by my boss, boss's boss, and boss's boss's boss one day because myself and a coworker had sent emails about how we were tired of being promised better staffing and it not being delivered. I kept getting asked, "Does having one less patient really make a difference?" Yes it does! One less patient and I get a lunch and get out on time. One less patient and I'm actually able to check on my patients every 2 hours which is the standard of care. One less patient means I don't want to quit my job at the end of the day because I'm worried that I'm going to accidently kill one of them due to a med error or missing a sign that they're decompensating.

[Angie O'Plasty, RN]

Originally Posted by spacenurse

Hiring One Extra Nurse Might Help Hospitals Save Lives

If hospitals added one more full-time registered nurse on staff to care for patients, the number of hospital-related deaths in the United States could decrease significantly, according to a new review. However, cost concerns and a worsening nursing shortage might make this an unlikely scenario.

When asked how hospital administrators can be better made aware of these possible rates of improved patient outcomes, lead review author Robert Kane, M.D., said, “The issue is not making them aware of the possibility, it’s convincing them that it is in their best interests to act on it. From a business perspective, the savings in reduced lengths of stay would not offset the costs of the added staffing. The case would have to be made in terms of image and liability.”

The systematic review aimed to examine whether there was a link between a hospital’s registered nurse-to-patient ratio and the health outcome of the patients under their care.

Kane, of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and colleagues write that “nurses are crucial to providing high-quality care,” and “increasing the nurse-to-patient ratios has been recommended as a means to improve patient safety.”

http://www.newswise.com/p/articles/view/535663/

I find it really hard to believe that reduced LOS would not be offset by hiring an "extra" nurse. Reducing LOS from nosocomial infection, sepsis, and hospital-acquired decubs alone should be worth it. All of those are conditions that are exacerbated (and probably created) by poor staffing.

It seems to me that the accounting department looks only at one side of the balance sheet when it comes to nursing -- the expense side.

It gets old, really it does.

[Weeping Willow]

Maybe now that Medicare is refusing to pay for hospital errors, nosocomial infections, and the like, hospital administrators will want to get that "extra" nurse at the bedside.

Hooray for Dr. Kane.

[RN1980]

yep something as simple as that will do the trick. but to bad ceo's are so near sighted that they had rather pay tens and hundreds of thousands every few years for high dollar staffing consultants to come in and basically tell them the same thing, just like my hospital has done.

[rjflyn]

One extra nurse, shoot. Lets just get the hospital up to full staff. Heres a challenge, look at your own facility and regardless of what they have posted in HR is it fully staffed. Mines not, I am willing to bet that no one else's is either.

Rj

[wooh]

Originally Posted by Weeping Willow

Maybe now that Medicare is refusing to pay for hospital errors, nosocomial infections, and the like, hospital administrators will want to get that "extra" nurse at the bedside.

Hooray for Dr. Kane.

Doubtful, the CEOs that so quickly push "evidence-based practice" are quick to critique any evidence that shows things that cost money will do any good. It will just become nursing's fault for not doing more with less, like everything else is. Policies that give more work to the nursing staff are easy to get. Policies that give the nurses a break, that's just crazy!

[pickledpepperRN]

"evidence based" is statistics only. Like the "average" patient with a particular diagnosis needs "1-2-3" interventions.

Your patient is not the "average".
If there are 12 patients and 11 are 80 years old, but the other is 20 years old the average is 75.
So according to "evidence based" statistics your 20 year old needs the same care as your other patients.
Hospital administrations love to standardize care.

But Scientifically peer reviewed studies that prove that complications and even death are more likely when more patients are assigned to a nurse they ignore it.
YOU nurse have to do more with less.

[imenid37]

Hospitals are penny-wise and pound foolish. They ALWAYS see nursing as a financial burden, in terms of salaries, bene's, etc. They pretty much NEVER see nursing as a means of saving costs and increasing profitability. They are always trying to do more w/ less staffing to save $, when in fact evidence points to the fact that more nurses would actually save $ in the long run. I am always amazed how much hospitals will spend on junk and fluff, but do not want to pay OT or premium rates to get adquate staffing when there are sick calls, etc. I guess they are often willing to gamble that poor staffing will not result in a error and subsequent litigation or poor customer service and the subsequent lousy PR and loss of business. I think the poor service happens all of the time and they just look the other way refusing to believe that happier nursing staff makes for happier patients.
Satisfied staff are a much better advertisement than the cheeseball ads, they pay ad agencies big $'s to come up with. There are many patient safety features available to us today, such as the "smart" IV pumps. Many nurses don't use these and admin. wonders why. It is because the nurses have way too many patients to stop and take all of these steps. It is sad, but true. If Mr. Jones is jumping out of bed, will his nurse stop him from falling or finish enter his data in the "smart pump"? She(he) has also been called in the meantime to give a pain med to Jane Doe down the hall and is late doing dressing changes and meds on her other 6 patients. Not to mention the multi-screen computerized history she(he) needs to collect on admission from that new patient who thinks Jimmy Carter is still president. Oh yeah and the flu and pneumo vaccine info and TDAP. I work OB and we have it good compared with poor med-surg nurses and we often are stretched to the MAX. My feeling is if the hospitals want all of this data collected on patients, then need a nurse just to take care of that on each shift and plenty of nursing techs/assistants who are well-trained and well-paid to take care of patients' hygiene and comfort needs.

[crissrn27]

I'm with you guys. I am currently working (ok, so I'm on medical leave right now) at the best hospital I have ever worked at, and it is that b/c they seem to actually care about staffing issues. Doesn't mean that we actually get all the help we need, but it seems that they try a lot harder than any other place I have been at.

It is the place to work around here, b/c staff are, in general, happy there.

Having enough staff (or even nearly enough), is probably the best advertisement for staff there is. Every hospital would save money if they had enough staff in general, enough nursing staff in particular.

Think of how many falls, infections, med errors, etc, could be avoided with adequate staff. All that equals mucho $$$. Not to mention, the better the pt ratio, the more nursing staff you are going to keep, which means less $$ to hire and train staff.