Question

Read Nurse Staffing and Inpatient Hospital Mortality.
Write a Memorandum (no more than 2 pages) directed to your faculty answering the questions:

What questions the did researchers try to answer

Answer 1

MEMORANDUM

to:	Faculty
from:	xyz
subject:	impact of nurse staffing on patient mortality
date:	8.11.2019
CC:	HR

A research from the UCLA’S school of public health revealed that the mortality risk of patients increases in proportion to the below - target nursing shifts they are exposed to. The study was done by analysing the records of about 198,000 admitted patients and 177,000 nursing shifts in 43 patient care units. The difference between the target nursing staffing level and the actual nurse staffing level was analysed. The study sheds light on the fact that when the workload of nurses are increased, the risk of mortality among patients also increase. When compared to units where target nurse staffing was maintained, the mortality among patients in below target nurse staffing units was 6 per cent higher.

The study has brought to light serious concerns over patient safety due to understaffing, and high workloads of nurses. Hospital managements, stakeholders physicians and nurses must collaboratively work towards finding solutions to address this issue of nurse staffing to ensure that every patient receives optimum quality of care and is safe during their hospital stay.

To address this issue, the researchers recommend that:

1. All hospitals take the findings from the present study into consideration as the results of the study apply to all hospitals that are successful in meeting the target nurse staffing as well as those that are less successful in maintaining the nurse staffing levels.
2. Hospitals and healthcare providers must put efforts to analyse all elements that contribute to provision of safe patient care.
3. Hospital managements , physicians and nurses must work in collaboration to ensure safe patient care and nurse staffing .
4. The results of the study can be used to steer a national dialogue on nurse staffing and nursing workload on patient care outcomes.
5. The focus to be shifted from whether nurse staffing affects patient outcomes to how to provide better patient care and discuss on how current payment systems can be used to reward the effort of hospitals in ensuring adequate nurse staffing.
6. Nurses workload impacts the patient outcomes. The risk of mortality among patients increase when there is high turnover of patients in individual units. The risk of mortality is 4 percent higher in patients who are admitted in units where the turnover is high due to admissions, transfers or discharges.
7. Staffing should be based on the turnover of patients and the type of care required by the patients in a particular unit.

Nurses play a vital role in caregiving , coordinating the care process and also ensuring safety of the patients in the hospital. It is important that the findings of this study be taken seriously and worked upon. The reasons for below target staffing and increased workloads are to be studied and measures to ensure that safe patient care is provided must be implemented. Please contact me if you have any questions.