Nurse Patient Ratios

Should Nurse Patient Ratios Be Mandated?

One of the more critical issues in nursing is nurse staffing in the inpatient setting. It has been discussed that the larger the patient load the lower the quality of care for the patient, the higher the mortality rate and the lower the morale is for the nursing staff. While many solutions to this problem have been presented, such as mandated nurse patient ratios and increased support staff, the solutions present their own set of issues regarding supplemental staff and budgeting. The argument that mandated staffing will has the ability to cause more harm than good to the patient by using supplemental staffing and also that financial burden may be too much to bear.

Nursing is a profession that, among other things, is based on the ability to multitask. Some of the tasks that are the responsibility of the nurse include skin care and turning of immobile patients, patient education, documentation and discharge planning. When the nurse’s patient load increases, it makes it more difficult for them to complete their daily task completely and thoroughly. If all the tasks for each patient are not completed by the end of the nurse’s shift, it causes a decrease in the overall quality of care for the patient (Sochalski, 2004). If patients are not being turned every 2 hours and proper skin care is not provided this can lead to skin break down and skin ulceration. Inadequate teaching and discharge planning may lead to a patient’s inability to sufficiently care for him or herself and in turn lead to repeat hospitalizations. If documentation is not completed carefully, this not only leads to interdisciplinary problems due to lack of information regarding the patient and his or her plan of care, but also may result in legal problems. While there are other factors that lead to decreases in the quality of care, such as acuity of the patients, the turnover rate of the unit and the skill level of the unit supervisor, larger patient...