Patient to Nurse Ratio Nursing

Patient to Nurse Ratio

Nursing shortage in the country has been a pervasive problem for some time now. According to an update on the website of American Association of colleges of nursing, it was found that this problem is likely to intensify as baby boomers age and start need greater healthcare. But while patient problem is consistently rising, the number of nurses to serve is consistently going down or is at least not increasing. This means there is one nurse handling a higher number of patients. Or in other words, the nurse-patient ratio is no longer healthy.

Why do we need a more appropriate nurse-patient ratio? The answer is simple; because we need better healthcare for our patients; but there are other reasons why it should be healthier and not too high. Nurse patient ratio is directly connected with the issue of nursing shortage in the country. With fewer nurses to offer their services in hospitals, patients are at a greater risk of compromised care. One study cites other researches saying that, "Previous researchers have found nurse staffing to be associated with patients' probability of survival, decubiti, infections, and other patient safety outcomes. Fatigue of nurses related to overtime has been correlated with nurses' self-reporting errors. The use of overtime may satisfy minimum nurse to patient ratios, no research was found directly measuring its effects on patient outcomes." (Stone et al. 2007)

In an attempt to cut down costs, hospitals have come up with various measures and one of them is raising nurse to patient ratio. In one survey in 2001, 75% of nurses agreed that raising the ratio had led to work overload and compromised care. And 29% of nurses could at least name one case where patient's death occurred simply because of understaffing. "According to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), 24% of 1609 sentinel events (unanticipated events that result in injury, death, or permanent loss of function) were related to nurse staffing levels." (Rothberg, 2005)

The concern over understaffing leading to compromised healthcare has led to legislation in California and Massachusetts mandating minimum staffing level. Similarly 12 other states have proceeded with legislations to maintain a certain patient to nurse ratio. But hospital industry has not really welcomed these attempts. These legislations mean additional cost of hiring more staff and hospitals are already trying to reduce their operating costs. Many advocates of the move feel that lower patient to nurse ratio would lead to additional savings because it would reduce nurse turnover rate, lawsuits, complications and length of stay. Nursing unions in the state of California have asked for a PTN ratio of 3 to 1. The health association however agreed on 5 to 1 which sound more reasonable than the originally proposed 10 to 1. (Rothberg, 2005)

Patient to nurse ratio when it is too high can definitely adversely affect care. And with baby boomers aging and needing healthcare, we know that number of people looking for healthcare will continue to rise in the coming years. However staff shortage continues to pose a serious problem. And unfortunately, the problem doesn't always lie with cost control. While it is true that most of the problems with staff shortage can be attributed to hospitals cutting down their costs and hence keeping fewer nurses, there are also other factors responsible for severe shortage of nurses in hospitals around the country.