For the past 20 months, the stretched workforce has continued to accommodate patient influxes, creating an unsafe environment for nurses and patients alike, writes former COVID ICU nurse Jason John Fry.
Increased patient loads affect nurses’ performance and how they feel about their work. In a seminal study, Linda Aiken and other researchers identified that nurse burnout increased in hospitals with high patient-to-nurse ratios and decreased in facilities with low patient-to-nurse ratios.
Community members can ensure a nurse at their bedside by contacting their state representatives and advocating for legislation that creates safe patient-to-nurse ratios. and, as a result, has decreased patient mortality and increased nurse retention. The public must educate state representatives to create similar improvements in their communities.Medicare.gov
provides the public with critical information regarding the performance of hospitals that receive Medicare reimbursement. The website provides infection and complication rates but does not include patient-to-nurse ratios. By advocating for publicly reported staffing ratios, communities can choose facilities that prioritize patient outcomes.
The COVID-19 pandemic spotlighted the chronic problem of poor staffing in care settings and the resulting implications. Now we can improve healthcare systems by educating our representatives that staffing ratios matter to our communities. By supporting new standards of care, nurses and patients can focus on healing.
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