Essay Example on Understaffing of Health Care Personnel: Effects on Patients

Introduction

Understaffing of health care personnel has several consequences for the patient. The effects are adverse and can hinder their recovery process. This paper is an analysis of the questions; what are the effects of understaffing of nurses to the patients?. It discusses the literature review on the existing knowledge on the topic. The search engine used for this paper is the Health Reference Center Academic engine, and the keywords are, Patients' overstay in hospitals, Response to emergencies and fatigue among nurses.

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Effects on the patients & Literature Review

Understaffing leads to incidences of patients' fall in healthcare facilities. Patients fall is always accompanied by bruises and injuries that make the recovery of the patient slow. The goal of every health care institution is to have patients rest and recover in an environment that is conducive. Patients in the acute care facility register a higher number of falls. In research to determine the cause of falls in the patients, research at an acute care hospital showed that the patients fell because of the absence of nurses who could offer them primary care especially at night (Dykes, Carroll, Hurley, Benoit &Middleton,2009). Apart from the absence of proper assets and techniques to prevent falls, the main reason for falls was the absence of nurses especially at night to offer the patients the needed care.

Understaffing results in a longer stay of patients in a health facility. In a research conducted in four hospitals, with a large number of patients who were yet to be released, a conclusion that the patients overstayed due to hospital-developed conditions delayed medications and absence of critical care were made (Dykes.etal, 2009). Nurses are responsible for the wellbeing of the patients in a facility. An interview on both the patients and the nurses showed that there was less staff to cater to all the patients at once.

Responses to emergencies, and pain management, are delayed when an institution has less staff. The patient's experience in an understaffed facility is the inability to receive fast aid services as the response to an emergency is unreliable. Injuries are not attended to, leading to further complications. An observation of the patient's culture of safety in the US. Showed that care should be patient-centered and always ready to handle emergencies(Sammer, Lykens, sighn, Mains&Lackan, 2010). According to the literature, understaffing undermines the preparedness of an institution to handle an emergency. Lack of personnel to coordinate the response leads to further injury and even the death of a patient.

Finally understaffing of nurses leads to burnout and fatigue among the professionals leading to poor delivery of health care services to the patients. An overview of hospitals revealed that the nurses tend to work for at least 12 hours then work for extra hours which affected their health drastically(Garrett,2008). Garret observed that the incidences of nurses on a night shift to make medical errors or even passing out were high. The common example of errors that occurs is the wrong prescriptions, wrong discharges, and the patient acquires while in the hospital environment, inadequate follow-up and monitoring after procedures and missed administration of dosages. These have life-threatening consequences for the patient (Garrett,2008). He explains that physical activities are connected to the brain and the emotions. The reason for the poor service provision is due to fatigue. Fatigues are the major hindrances to nurses and often lead to nurses losing interest and even dropping out of work. The psychological and emotional parts of the nurses are strained and they cannot deliver their duties to the patients as they could have done when free from fatigue (Gallagher, 2011). The literature explores several nursing patterns used by major hospitals through, interviews and observation. Stimpfel's records that (Stimpfel, Sloane&Aiken, 2012), a majority leaving their jobs due to burn out and emotionally draining. It is less likely for a patient who has had a cardiac arrest to survive in a poor health care environment with less staff. Such patients require more attention. The fewer nurses assigned to them, have other responsibilities at the other parts of the facility, to cover up for the unavailable staff.

References

Dykes, P. C., Carroll, D. L., Hurley, A. C., Benoit, A., & Middleton, B. (2009). Why do patients in acute care hospitals fall? Can falls be prevented?. The Journal of nursing administration, 39(6), 299. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3107706/

Gallagher, A. (2011). Moral distress and moral courage in everyday nursing practice. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 16(2). http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/804571/

Garrett, C. (2008). The effect of nurse staffing patterns on medical errors and nurse burnout. AORN Journal, 87(6), 1191-1204. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001209208001075

Sammer, C., Lykens, K., Singh, K., Mains, D., & Lackan, N. (2010). What is Patient Safety Culture? A Review of the Literature. Journal Of Nursing Scholarship, 42(2), 156-165. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1547-5069.2009.01330.x

Stimpfel, A. W., Sloane, D. M., & Aiken, L. H. (2012). The longer the shifts for hospital nurses, the higher the levels of burnout and patient dissatisfaction. Health Affairs, 31(11), 2501-2509. https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/abs/10.1377/hlthaff.2011.1377

Wheatley, C. (2017). Nursing overtime: Should it be regulated?. Nursing Economics, 35(4), 213. https://www.nursingeconomics.net/necfiles/2017/JA17/213.pdf