Mandating Nurse-to-Patient Ratios

Nurse-to-patient ratios.

ply of nurses and better track and disseminate information on patient outcomes and nurse workloads. While there is much debate about the pros and cons of these alternatives, participants at the 25th Massachusetts Health Policy Forum generally agreed on the following points: • The number of staff nurses and their skill play a critical role in patient outcomes across a range of conditions in the ...

Nurse-to-patient ratios: research and reality.

The California experiment: alternatives for minimum nurse-to-patient ratios.

In making policy, it is ideal to study a problem, test solutions, and then implement the best solution. In California there is legislation regarding nurse staffing that requires implementation of a solution before the problem has been accurately stated and before alternative solutions have been tested. Assembly Bill 394 directs the California Department of Health Services to establish "minimum,...

Chapter 34. Effect of Nurse-to-Patient Staffing Ratios on Patient Morbidity and Mortality

How Important Is the Problem? A small percentage of hospitalized patients die during or shortly after their hospitalization. Evidence suggests that some proportion of these deaths could probably have been prevented with more nursing care. For example, in one early study of 232,342 surgical discharges from several Pennsylvania hospitals, 4,535 patients (2%) died within 30 days of the hospital ad...

Legislating for nurse/patient ratios 'clumsy and costly' - experts.

They were responding to the unions’ attempt to relieve pressure cooker working conditions for a thin and increasingly ageing nursing population. Veteran trade union, Solidarity, and the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) are punting flexible but legally enforceable nurse/patient ratios to reduce ‘burnout’ resignations, to reverse nurse emigration trends and to boost traini...