NURSING STAFFING STRATEGIES

At my place of work, the issue around nursing staffing strategies has been of great concern lately. There are more and more days that are staffed with unsafe patient to nurse ratios.  Nurses are being over worked, working longer hours which required the use of more expensive labor, such as overtime and bonus'. As this issue has been increasing, a committee dedicated to safe nurse staffing and protecting nursing practice has been advocating for ways to increase the nurse's willingness to work more hours, for the short term, by offering incentives and negotiating for days off on days that are over staffed. This is a unique chance to advance policies that will help improve patient safety, increase access to high quality health care, and protect nursing practice  from the threat of profit driven health care. This issue also personally effects my current role by increasing the work load of everyone and passing along a unsafe role to other interdisciplinary team members.

Video: Nurse Staffing and Patient Safety

This video talks about one hospitals approach to nurse staffing processes.  "They looked at Different models for nurse staffing and how they influenced patient outcomes and if they have had an impact on patient outcomes. They found that when they use nurse staffing models that use higher levels of regulated professional nursing care provides this leads to improved patient outcomes.  Staffing the nursing team involves more the just the number of nurses, its about the right mix of education, experience, and skills.  We need to look at the experience of the nurses on the unit so that we can be bringing along the newer nurses and really recognize the value in those years of experience the more senior nurses bring"

How Can Nurse Leaders help?

By "Developing staffing strategies that not only met the clinical needs of patients but also address the personal and professional needs of the nurse.  By using an integrated and systematic approach, nurses can assist managers in the following" (Huber, 2009, p. 30).

• Demand planning: understand and quantify workload patterns, and identify day to day and seasonal variations
• Analyzing process and work rules: assess staff satisfaction with current staffing and scheduling process, and make suggestions for improvements.  This should also include suggestions for changes in work rules to support the changing demographic of the work force (e.g., the need for more part time opportunities and shorter shift lengths.

Nurses suggestions for retention strategies:

• Improvements in the work environment
• Establishing a culture of safety
• Supportive Supervision
• Involvement in organizational decision making
• Flexible and creative staffing/scheduling practices
• carved out roles (admitting/discharging teams, patient educators, preceptor-mentor roles)

Reference
Huber, D. H. (2009).  Leadership and nursing care management. 4th edition.  Saunders, Elsevier Health Sciences. Maryland Heights, MO.