Jan Jennings--Hospital Quality: What Is Wrong And Can Anything Be Done?

oramar · Apr 21, 2003

So Mr Jennings has written another article. All in all I would say it is a good one. No mention of nurse patient ratios that I can see. That topic is poison to healthcare execs. I will reread to make sure I did not miss it.

susanmary · Apr 21, 2003

LaurieCRNP2002, MSN, RN, APRN · Apr 21, 2003

I totally, 100% agree with susanmary. It is so frustrating to me to hear managers and supervisors talk about "staffing grids"--for x number of patients, we need y nurses, and z aides. C'mon people! These are not robots we're taking care of--they're human beings! I think the challenge for us is to come up with a reasonable acuity scoring system that will be utilized fairly by BOTH staff and management. I remember when I was a senior nursing student, my one preceptor showed me the form they used, called Medicus, but what really stuck in my mind was her commment "It's used to take staff away when census is low but it's never used to give us staff." Any other place I've heard of or worked at that uses some kind of "acuity" system, the staff usually "fudges" it a bit so that they'll get more staff and/or management somehow finds a way to not give a unit/floor the staff they need, even if their "grid" calls for a certain number of patients. A supervisor at another faciliity I used to work at was infamous for trying to cut staffing "to the bone". Although I liked the supervisor as a person, I hated when she was on b/c I knew that we wouldn't get the kind of staffing we needed/deserved.

I'm thinking as I write this that maybe AACN (Amer Association of Critical Care Nurses) could take the lead on helping develop an acuity system that "everyone" could live with.

Laurie

Not so newly minted MSN

OC_An Khe · Apr 22, 2003

Well written article. Its not only RN to patient ratio that needs to be improved. Many other positions in health care are also crucial to improving patient outcomes. Although I would start with RNs first. Another area that needs to be discussed is what areas of health care should be for profit (if any) and what areas should be not for profit.