There are several clinical problems I have observed in nursing practice, and one of the most common is understaffing and the resultant low-quality of clinical care (Smith et al., 2015). Understaffing leads to low nursing staff to patient ratio, and as a result, there increased risk of mistakes committed, and patients are subjected to low-quality healthcare. Additionally, chances of the nursing staff being subjected to extreme stress and burnout increases. Understaffing has majorly been contributed by factors such as the existing gap between the readily available registered nurses and the available positions that need to be filled and the current need for greater acuity care for patients.
It has been difficult to address the problem because every time the healthcare staffs channels their complaints to the healthcare facility management, the management in most cases do not listen and therefore no action is taken (Smith et al., 2015). As such the nursing staffs’ effort to get their concerns addressed prove futile as the administrators stand their ground and nurses are left to work hard and as a team to execute their duties well and ensure that proper care is administered to the patients while upholding patients’ safety. In this case, the dangers of increased medication errors and compromised patient safety may increase and may push the hospital administrators to change their stands.
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When I was working at Cleveland clinic, some of the questions that came up due to this problem are whether there exists any relationship medical errors/low healthcare quality and under/poor staffing? How do nurses’ workload/working conditions impact the quality of care given to the patient? Whether hiring more nursing staff will mean reduced income for the facility? Whether continuously increasing avoidable undesirable patient outcomes will lead to increased medical costs? With these questions, more research may be undertaken on changes in the staffing of nurses and its implications on healthcare quality (Smith et al., 2015).
References
Coventry, T. H., Maslin ‐ Prothero, S. E., & Smith, G. (2015). Organizational impact of nurse supply and workload on nurses continuing professional development opportunities: an integrative review. Journal of advanced nursing, 71(12), 2715-2727.
