Registered Nurse safe staffing involves increasing the number of registered nurses for Medicare-participating hospitals. Safe staffing includes ensuring that nurses work in units within the hospital for which they are trained, and that nurse staff meets the approved nurse to patient ratio. The Registered Nurse safe staffing act was implemented due to the tendency of hospitals to eliminate or under staff registered nurses to reduce labor costs. The registered Nurse safe staffing act hence intends to ensure there are adequate qualified nurses employed by Medicare hospitals to ensure quality patient treatment (Congress.gov, 2016). Cost-effectiveness and cost control are the main factors of interest in the establishment of any policy in nursing practicing. Therefore, this paper will discuss the financial and budgetary issues surrounding the registered nurse safe staffing policy in regard to cost controls and cost-effectiveness and their impacts on health outcomes.
The main reasons for hospitals understaffing registered nurses are due to lack of funding to cater for the registered nurses in regard to compensation for the nurses given other financial constraints. There is need to adequately fund the Registered nurse safe staffing policy to ensure it holds to avoid the need to reduce staff or increased nurse strikes. Most of the funding for hospitals is generated from insurance such as Medicare. Therefore, to increase funding for the Registered nurse safe staffing policy the first step is to ensure as many as possible citizens are registered for Medicare. Safe staffing is a policy that increases costs for many hospitals with the greater burden being borne by privately insured patients. For this reason, there is a need for the development of strategies that are cost-effective and efficient for the registered nurse safe staffing policy (Reiter, et al., 2011). The annual cost of recruiting a registered nurse ranges from $46 to $95 for every hospital, and the yearly cost of registered nurses wage is approximately $63, 970. The annual costs incurred by hospitals per every registered nurse poses great financial challenges for the organization in a competitive market hence the reluctance on registered nurse staffing (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016).
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Registered nurse safe staffing is a policy that raises costs for hospitals. The registered nurse safe staffing act, therefore, pushes hospitals to invest in financial and budgetary controls to contain the costs. One of the means of controlling costs is getting citizens to have health insurance to cater for their medical bills. Another greatly advocated cost control initiative is proper staff management to ensure cost-effectiveness and minimize costs at the same time. One of the ways of managing staff to achieve cost-effectiveness is to increase the number of hours provided by registered nurses. By increasing the hours for a registered nurse, the hospital can offer quality care without extra costs. On the other hand, increasing the number of registered nurses improves efficiency reducing costs incurred in patient long stay in the hospitals or re-emergence of sickness due to low-quality care.
Another part of staff management to ensure cost-effectiveness is investing in a nursing administration that specializes in allocating nurses and achieving the most effective staff mix for each shift hence efficiency. Increasing the number of registered nurses is also a way of achieving cost-effectiveness and control. An adequate number of registered nurses ensures low patient resource consumption rate a, decreased stay in the hospital and lower mortality rates (Thungjaroenkul, Cummings, & Embleton, 2007). For instance, by hiring unqualified nurses, a hospital is likely to have several cases of adverse patients events which will lead to longer hospital stays and visits hence high resource consumption. On the other hand, hiring unlicensed nurses promotes poor retention of nurses and misuse of overtime as well as increased nursing turnover costs. Registered nurses have high retention rates, and better managed overtime as well as reduced overtime costs hence cost-effective.
To finance a registered nurse, safe staffing policy promotes positive health outcomes and the role of nurses in the workplace. Nurses play a crucial role in the healthcare system. Adequate and qualified staffing aids in ensuring quality health care services are offered to patients and hence better health outcomes. By employing the expertise of qualified nurses, hospitals can reduce the length of stay of patients in the hospitals. Thus, minimizing resource consumption and attending to a broader client base. Adequate staffing also gives nurses enough time to work on their patient and enough off hours which allows them to be more lucrative in the workplace. The nurses have manageable workloads and can offer adequate care to each patients reducing the in-hospital mortality rate associated with neglect and minimal care or overlooked signs due to fatigue. The nursing staff is in a better position to offer quality care if it is well qualified to do so and is serving a reasonable number 0f patients at a given time (Department for Professional Employers, 2016). Therefore, financing the registered nurses safe staffing ensures quality health care, positive health outcomes and positivity of nurses at the workplace.
In conclusion, the registered nurses safe staffing policy is more cost effective and beneficial for hospitals. The costs saved by hospitals employing registered nurses and better staff management provide more profits to cater for its funding. The overall benefits for safe staffing are greater than the cost of hiring unlicensed personnel factoring in the probability of retention and quality of service. Therefore, it is ideal to reinforce the registered nurses safe staffing policy in all hospitals to achieve quality care without the fear of increased costs.
References
Congress.gov. (2016). H.R.2083 - registered nurse safe staffing act of 2015. 1 14th Congress (2015-2016). Retrieved on 15 January 2018 from https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2083/text.
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2016). Occupational employment and wages, May 2016 29-1141 registered nurses. Occupational Employment Statistics . Retrieved on 15 January 2018 from https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291141.htm.
Reiter, K. L., Harless, D. W., Pink, G. H., Spetz, J. & Mark, B. (2011). The Effect of minimum nurse staffing legislation on uncompensated care provided by California hospitals. Medical Care Research and Review, MCRR, 68 (3), 332–351. Doi: http://doi.org/10.1177/1077558710389050.
Department for Professional Employers. (2016). Safe-staffing ratios: Benefiting nurses and patients. Fact Sheet 2016 . Retrieved on 15 January 2018 from http://dpeaflcio.org/wp-content/uploads/Safe-Staffing-Ratios-2016.pdf.
Thungjaroenkul, P., Cummings, G. G., & Embleton, A. (2007). The impact of nurse staffing on hospital costs and patient length of stay: a systematic review. Nursing Economics, 25 (5), 255
