Nurse Staffing - A Survey for Consumers

[begalli]

Have you been affected by the nursing shortage? If you or any family members have had an experience that involved nurse staffing in hospitals (positive or negative) in the last five years, complete this survey from the National Consumers League:

Survey here:

http://www.nclnet.org/nursesurvey.htm

[mattsmom81]

Now why are our nursing organizations not involved in this kind of research??

I believe understaffing is at the bottom of many complaints hospitalized patients/families make..although facilities want to blame individuals ie nurses for the complaint. If we had a little more time to listen and defuse situations our 'customers' would not be so angry IMO.

Understaffing is also at the core of the 'shortage' of bedside nurses and the burnout of good nurses everwhere IMO.

So I'm happy someone is looking at this.

Thanks for posting Begalli!

[begalli]

Now why are our nursing organizations not involved in this kind of research??

I so agree with you! The nursing crisis in this country should be front and center of every single newpaper in every single city in this country. Nursing organizations are aware of the problem. Pick up any nursing journal and you will find something about nurse staffing and how it negatively affects patient care. Why they don't advocate more for nurses by getting the word out beyond our journals, I don't know.

I really wonder. When people have a bad experience during a hospital stay, do they realize that more than likely it's atributable to woefully inadequate nurse staffing? Or do they just think that they have bad luck and ended up with a couple of bad nurses? From my own experience, I think it's the latter.

When I recently had a relative hospitalized for a long period of time, my family got quite an education from me about staffing and the importance of not relying upon the nurse in recognizing complications or realizing trends. At first, my family tended more toward blaming the nurse for not having the time instead of stopping to ask that nurse, how's your patient load today, or even thinking that his/her assignment was directly related to the lack of attention the patient got from the RN. Once this was realized the ire of my family turned more toward the hospital than it was toward the individual nurse. I can tell you that my laypeople family became expert at recognizing problems and asking for appropriate help - ON TOP OF the emotional anguish and downright fear they had for the well-being of our loved one simply being sick and hospitalized.

You're right mattsmom, at least someone is looking into this on a view from the general public level. I happened upon this survey accidently. I'm not sure how to make this survey more widely known about, but I did send an email link to every one I could think of because I think it's very important .... maybe even sticky worthy on this bulletin board.

We need our nurse leaders publicly talking about this loud and clear. They're not (less the CNA of course in CA). It's just the same 'ol, same 'ol.

[begalli]

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