Something in my heart tells me that if hospitals were mandated to adhere to appropriate staffing ratios that patient care would automatically improve. As is, and seems to be getting worse, the financial budgets of most, if not all, hospitals are deteriorating. The staff is asked to do more with less, but reminded to always “do” in an excellent way. I agree that excellence is mandatory, but is hard to do when the admission floor has 30 patients, 3 Registered Nurses, 1 Certified Nursing Assistant, and 1 Unit Coordinator. Meanwhile, the Emergency Department is full, with many waiting in the lobby; the Critical Care Unit is full, and only has one Registered Nurse scheduled for the upcoming 7a shift. Both, the administrator on call and the unit …show more content…
Situations, like the one I described, are not isolated, they are occurring daily, without required intervention. Through extensive research of the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing program, I have learned that removing a Foley catheter is much more important than the number of staff members that are capable of removing said Foley catheter. Maybe I do not understand the whole process, and perhaps I am being judgmental, but I believe that the process of basing reimbursement payments on such procedures as catheters is ludicrous; the main focus should be centered toward appropriate staffing ratios, which would equate to a higher level of care, as well as a higher patient perception of care, resulting in excellent care for every patient, every …show more content…
More than 50% of hospital admissions originate from the emergency department, according to Dyrda (2016), the “number of ED visits resulting in a hospital admission annually: 16.2 million” (para. 1), and are increasing at an alarming rate. So, the opportunity for hospitals to receive payment is minimal, at best. One would assume that ensuring appropriate staffing would be more important, as compared to parameters that have been enacted to determine payment status. Although many state governments have enacted steps to increase patient safety, “only California and Massachusetts have passed legislation on mandatory nurse-patient ratios, and only California has implemented ratios” (Manjlovich, 2009, para.