Question

This week, you will perform scholarly research about a current event in Nursing. Here are some ideas:

• Nursing compensation
• Staffing ratios
• Mandatory overtime
• Patient and staff safety
• Ethical dilemmas (euthanasia, genomics, etc.)

Answer 1

Nursing means the autonomous and collaborative care of individuals of all ages, familes, groups and communities, sick or well individuals and all individuals who need medical assistances. Nursing includes promotion of the health care system, prevention of illness, and care of all human beings and all the living individuals.

Research in nursing compensation in nursing field shown that hospital with better nurse staffing and work environments have better nurse out comes with less burnout, job dissatisfation and intention to leave the job. Many studies and researches have been published related this wage compensation in the nursing field. Most studies revealed that wage was associated with job dissatisfaction and intent to leave but have little influence on burnout. Wage is important for good nurse outcomes. A satisfactory wage is a significant factor in job seeking behaviour and is especially important in keeping the nursing workers in their current positions.

The staffing ratio in nursing is a number to describe the number of patients assigned to each nurse. Nurse patient assignments are based on the patient for nursing care. In critical care units such as ICUs, the nurse to patient ratios may be 1:1 or 1:2. In general medical care units the nurse to patient ratio is higher that may be 1:5 or 1:7. The American Nurses Association supports a legislative model in which nurses are empowered to create staffing plans specific to each unit.

Mandatory overtime in nursing means the hours nurses are required to work beyond their contracted shifts. Mandatory overtime work is an issue faced in many medical and surgical nurses across the world. It is occoured because to overcome the shortage of nursing staffs, an emergency situation, cost-cutting lay offs, and redesign the health care organization, etc. To reduce the mandatory overtime, the nursing heads, Medical director, Administrative staffs commities join to plan to implement measures to avoid the use of mandatory overtime.

Patient and staff safety is an essential and important component of quality nursing care. Nursing research has a significant contribution in patient safety by identifying the need for correct nursing staff. The adequate nursing staff is critical to the delivery of quality patient care because it allows time for appropriate assessment of patients.

Important Ethical dilemmas in nursing are

1. Informed consent

2. Disclosing medical conditions.

3. Incompetence among peers

4. Broader ethical issues

5. Patients freedom relating with Nursing control

6. Honesty relating with the elective informations

7. Patients personal beliefs, etc