Nurse patient ratio act Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Nurse patient ratio act - Essay Example There will also be a good number of nurses who are available to cater to unexpected tasks. Where the nurse-to-patient ratio is concerned, the National Nursing Shortage and Reform Act stipulates that each unit should have its own requirements on the number of nurses that will be allowed to work for each shift (Conway, Konetzka, Zhu, Volpp and Sochalski, 2008). The bill also allows for the annual evaluation of the staffing plans of public hospitals where the nurse-to-patient staffing ratio is concerned. Making the workload more manageable for nurses will make the hospital environment safer as nurses will have more time to accord personalized care. The nurses will also be able to recognize any shifts in the physical conditions of their patients, thus allowing them to make timely corrections that will prevent the deterioration of patients. The bill will also allow more time for different operations; meaning that nurses will make less mistakes as a result of hurrying from one ward to anot her. This bill can also improve on medical costs for patients as the nurses will have more time in which to perform different complicated functions- meaning that they are less likely to make mistakes that cost additional funds to correct. Supportive Organizations The National Nurses United (NNU) is one of the most powerful establishments that are in support of the National Nursing Shortage and Reform Act. The NNU has even stated that a study quoted in the Health Services Research made the discovery that in California, fixed staffing levels have contributed towards reducing the state’s mortality rates in the cases of general surgery patients. Fixed staffing levels also resulted in higher levels of reported job satisfaction in the nursing workforce. The study also found that if hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania were to set up the staffing levels in the same way as were set in California, there would be fewer numbers of deaths suffered by surgery patients. This means that the more nurses a hospital has, the better off the patients will be. There are also other federal organizations that have actually supplied funds to ensure that there are adequate numbers of nurses in various hospitals. The Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA’s) Division of Nursing in 2004 was the beneficiary of appropriations in support of student scholarships, nursing education, nurse retention, faculty development, and workforce diversity. The Centers for Medicaid and Medicaid Services (CMS) in 2004 also granted more than $6 million for Patient Care Work Force Stabilization programs to sixteen hospitals. This money was meant to assist in address retention of experienced nurses, adequate hospital staffing, and secure competitive compensation for staff working in medical facilities (Allen, 2008). Rationale for the Bill: Why is it an Appropriate Bill to Support Nursing? If the current nursing shortage persists, the nurses that are left in the hospital s will be forced to take on more patients per shift. This will increase their exhaustion and create a situation where the patients are exposed to insufficient care on a daily basis. In addition, there are demographic changes that are taking place in the working population where Baby-Boomers who work as nurses are set to retire in the near future Lacey and Wright (2009). This will further exacerbate the current