How Staffing Legislation Affects Hospitals

Staffing Legislation
Staffing legislation is meant to improve safety, quality and outcomes of care for patients by ensuring that there are enough nurses on staff for the number of patients who come through a facility. Staffing regulations are meant to guarantee that the best ratio of patients to nurses is achieved in each hospital that receives taxpayer funds. As Rothberg, Abraham, Lindenauer and Rose (2005) indicate, by improving the nurse-to-patient staffing ratios, health care facilities can implement a cost-effective safety intervention that improves the safety and quality of care of patients.
Staffing legislation does an effective job of addressing the issue in competitive markets. In other words, where there is strong competition among health care providers, staffing legislation helps to ensure that hospitals focus on acquiring talented nurses and retaining them (Everhart, Neff, Al-Amin, Nogle & Weech-Maldonado, 2013). However, in regions where competition is not strong, staffing legislation has negligible impact on improving quality of care services—mainly because competition is what drives quality, and in competitive markets, staffing legislation is one more strategy that health care facilities can utilize to strengthen their approach quality care (Everhart et al., 2013). For example, in a major urban area like Chicago, there will be strong competition among hospitals: those hospitals that have the recommended nurse-to-patient ratio will have a better track record and reputation for providing safe, effective quality care than those hospitals whose ratio is sub-par. On the other hand, in a rural region where there is only one major hospital within a 100 mile radius, staffing legislation regarding the ratio of nurses to patients is unlikely to be impactful because there is no sense among staff or managers of the threat of losing nurses to a competitor.
The role of the nurse in addressing the quality and safety standards with respect to staffing legislation is to act as a voice on the staffing committee. Every nursing department is represented by a nurse on the committee and that nurse has a say in what the staffing ratio should be for that department. Thus, every nurse can express through their representative on the committee their sense of what the right ratio of nurses should be in their department.
The position that I plan to take in my position paper is that staffing legislation is a good strategy to employ. It certainly has not been shown to hurt, and while it may be costly in the short term, the reality is that over time it is a cost-effective strategy because in competitive markets, the more nurses on call the better the chances are that every patient will receive the type of care he or she needs (Martin, 2015). My viewpoint is that patients suffer when there are too few nurses on a shift, because too few nurses means not enough time and attention is being shown to patients. Moreover, there is a negative impact on nurses when they are spread thin. They can experience burnout and fatigue and can quit their jobs in frustration because they feel they are overworked. This can in turn impact the financial situation of the health care facility as high turnover rates are costly, as each time a nurse leaves a new nurse has to be recruited, hired and trained, which takes time, money and resources. For that reason, my position is that it is important for staffing legislation to be enacted: it gives a greater voice to nurses in care facilities, which is important as nurses really are the heart and soul of health care. It also helps to ensure that patients are provided for: if there are enough nurses on call, patients will receive the attention they deserve. Finally, it can ensure that burnout risks are mitigated and that facilities do not suffer from high turnover.
References
Everhart, D., Neff, D., Al-Amin, M., Nogle, J., & Weech-Maldonado, R. (2013). The
effects of nurse staffing on hospital financial performance: Competitive versus less competitive markets. Health Care Management Review, 38(2), 146.
Martin, C. J. (2015). The effects of nurse staffing on quality of care. MedSurg
Nursing, 24(2), S4-S4.
Rothberg, M. B., Abraham, I., Lindenauer, P. K., & Rose, D. N. (2005). Improving
nurse-to-patient staffing ratios as a cost-effective safety intervention. Medical Care, 43(8), 785-791.