When creating a nursing or staffing assignment, several factors need to be considered. The nurses need to be assigned tasks based on such factors as staff skill mix, patient care requirements, education, unit variables, and levels of competency. These factors include many aspects, for example, patient demographics and workloads, and should be researched thoroughly to adequately match nurses with assignments. Other crucial factors concern the activity in the medical facility, such as direct, indirect, and non-patient care activities during the nurse’s shift. In addition, the layout of the hospital and the resource allocation needs to be taken into consideration.
The potential barriers to safe nurse staffing include multiple influences. First of all, the increase in patients to the point that the nurses cannot manage all of the patients poses a threat to the hospital’s functionality. Second of all, the stress that nurses experience can lead to burnout, exhaustion, and, therefore, mistakes and errors. Prolonged shifts and overtime work are the primary causes of these factors. Finally, negative impacts on nurses’ mental and physical health lead to high turnover, which only escalates the problem.
The issue of staffing legislation has different aspects which need to be analyzed when discussing potential regulations regarding the nursing assignment. On the one hand, the benefit of legislation that sets up a specific ratio of nurses to patients is that it lets the nurses spend more time on the patients. The increase in patient care time minimizes the potential for errors and ensures safe working conditions for the nurses themselves (Han et al., 2021). On the other hand, the increase in nursing staff leads to an increase in the facility’s expenses. In my personal opinion, legislations in this field are essential as it would allow to structuralize and improve the patient care experience for both nurses and patients.
Reference
Han, X., Pittman, P., & Barnow, B. (2021). Alternative approaches to ensuring adequate nurse staffing: The effect of state legislation on hospital nurse staffing. Medical Care, 59(5), 463–470.