Team Two Case Study Response Fisher
Do you believe the hospital was intentionally understaffing in this case to save money?
Based on the data presented during the depositions revealing that the facility failed to meet its own staffing standards for 51 of the 59 days prior to the incident, the statement from the staffing supervisor in regards to warnings from administration concerning the costs of scheduling additional nurses, and the documents submitted by the nurses expressing their apprehension that short staffing was creating patient safety concerns, by all appearances, the hospital’s under staffing was financially motivated.
What can hospitals’ put into place to protect patients’ and address family concerns during their loved ones hospitalization?
…show more content…
Reporting chronic understaffing to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the state board of nursing would be an ethical responsibility and the most appropriate course of action.
How does your hospital/work area measure up to their staffing standards?
Emergency departments across the nation are facing high volumes since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. In addition, the ability to recruit and hire experienced emergency nurses has declined. Given this adversity, our emergency department is encountering staffing challenges and is not meeting appropriate staffing ratios. However, the current staffing challenges are not due to lack of support from administration.
Is it ethical/legal for nurses to refuse to provide care and work a shift if they believe it jeopardizes their license?
According to the American Nurses Association a registered nurse may, based on their professional and ethical responsibilities possess the professional privilege to refuse a patient assignment that places patients or themselves at risk for harm (American Nurses Association,
There are many concerns the scenario illuminates for practicing nurses. Prior to going out on placement to a healthy facility,
Ivy Tech Community College School of Nursing NRSG 128 Practice Issues for the Practical Nurse Discussion Rubric Name: ___Jasmine Liubakka___________ Date: _________10-27-15_______________ Topic of Discussion: Should the impaired nurse be allowed to return to work? Position on Topic: (1) Points ________________ Yes, I feel that as long as the nurse participates in a program that includes requirements of regular attendance at support group meetings, personal and active involvement with a 12-step sponsor, and close contact with a case manager or monitor of an alternative program, she should be allowed to return to work.
State-mandated nurse-to-patient ratios remains a controversial topic in healthcare. Sufficient nurse staffing is key to ensure adequate patient care, while scarce staffing effects patients’ safety and puts nurses at risk for burnout. Determining nurse-to-patient ratios in nursing facilities remains a challenge for the nursing profession. There are many factors to consider when determining staffing methods, such as cost, nurses’ satisfaction, patient outcomes and safety. Mandating ratios is one attempt at ensuring nurses’ workloads do not exceed what is needed for adequate patient care and safety.
In studying Registered Nursing one will find that they have to be compassionate and want to care for others. Registered Nurses assist physicians with suffering patients of any medical condition. They help to decide the patient’s medicine, treatment, recovery, and educate the them and their families on post-medical treatment. They need to have bedside manner, and be able to prepare patients for surgery. Registered Nursing careers range anywhere from critical care, oncology, mental health, to an everyday school nurse.
Our nurses are being over worked and understaffed and no one is saying anything! There are mountains of evidence that show the adverse relationship between subpar nursing care and patient outcomes. Many people work overtime to make that overtime money because the hospital is usually understaffed. But because patient outcomes really depend on nurses to be in tip top shape, I think it is extremely important that hospitals eliminate working overtime. That is why I am asking policy makers to cosponsor the bill S. 1132: the Registered Nurse Safe Staffing Act of 2015.
Nurses play an essential role in the healthcare industry. The nurse workforce is made up of licensed nurses: registered nurses (RNs), licensed vocational nurses (LVNs) and licensed practical nurses (LPNs), along with nurse aides. Registered nurses are responsible for assessments of patients’ needs, development of care plans, medication administration, and treatments, while licensed vocational nurses perform specific care under the delegation of the registered nurses and supervisions. Nursing aides perform activities of daily living (unskilled attention) to the patient. Adequate nursing staffing is essential to both patient care and outcomes, also to the retention of nurses while inadequate staffing creates problems for both the patients and
Abandonment and Nursing The career of nursing is more than just healing the sick. Nursing often causes nurses to face moral and ethical dilemmas. “Ethics refers to principles of right and wrong behaviors, beliefs, and values (Zerwekh & Garneau, 2015, p. 420).” When new graduate nurses begin their careers the first twelve months are a great time to gain a better understanding of personal beliefs and how they can affect patient care.
In this case study the primary nurse, Amelia Wilkerson, is caring for a patient, Katy Palmer who has recently been admitted to the hospital for fatigue and abnormal lab counts. The patient asks Amelia for information regarding her diagnosis. Amelia has seen Katy’s results and knows that she has been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia. The ethical dilemma seen in this situation is that it is outside of the scope of practice for Amelia to discuss Katy’s original diagnosis with her.
Mandatory overtime is an issue faced by many nurses across the nation. It is seen as a solution to the nursing shortage crisis; however, it is not a sustainable solution as it has led to an increase in medical errors, increased patient mortality, decreased job satisfaction, nurse fatigue, and deficits in nurse’s work performance. Several states have enacted or are considering laws to prohibit this problem. According to Rubenfire, “This is something that's been going on in hospitals for a very long time,” Ruben noted. “But it is not as focused on as much in the past.”
Nursing Shortage is a problem we all should be aware of. There are many factors that may lead to a nursing shortage, such as having stressful and unsafe working environments, and our nurses are being overworked. This is a problem we should be aware of because it is affecting the patient care. Nurses would not have enough time to stay with a patient if they have more patients to worry about. Nurses play a big role in our hospitals and communities, “Nurses play significant roles in hospitals, clinics and private practices.
In less acute circumstances, long term outcome of understaffing can also be detrimental to patient condition. Often, when a staff member is overwhelmed with the workload, nursing actions which are perceived less critical may be pushed to the back burner. Debilitated patients may not be turned and repositioned resulting in hospital acquired pressure ulcers, which not only affects patient outcome, but also taxes the hospital
Short staffing is one of the many challenges nurses encounter in the work environment. The impacts can be detrimental primarily to the patient’s outcome. To examine the effects of short staffing, research was conducted on 36,539 hospital inpatients to evaluate the amount of those exposed to an understaffed shift and how many patient outcomes resulted in a NSO (Twigg, Gelder, & Myers, 2015). NSO’s are nurse sensitive outcomes based on the nursing care provided to the patient. Patients exposed to short staffing had an increase of greater than one chance of NSO’s compared to patients not exposed (Twigg et al., 2015).
There are many stakeholders involved with health care administrations. Those stakeholders can be patients, health care physician, insurance providers, pharmaceutical manufactures, hospital organizations, community clinics and government. Each different stakeholder has their own individual vision of health care administration. This causes conflict due to the nature and differences in vision. which then can cause conflicts among each stakeholder involved.
Large patient loads combined with a stressful work environment affects nurses’ abilities to provide quality healthcare. Patient safety should never be compromised. It is our responsibility to learn from research and improve our current nurse staffing ratios. Nurse staffing is key and affects all other outcomes. Without nurses administering the right treatment at the right time to the right patients, all other healthcare interventions are not effective.
This paper will explore and discuss issues around accountability of registered nurses from legal, ethical and professional perspective. Relevant legal and ethical principles and theories will be explored and critically analysed. Statute law, case reports and professional guidance will be thoroughly examined as documents underpinning the subject of accountability in healthcare. Contemporary literature from peer-reviewed journals, text books and resources from professional regulatory bodies will be used to inform the discussion. Synthesis of the key issues and recommendations for practice will be offered in the conclusion.