By Jennifer Larson, contributor
A recent poll by the American Nurses Association (ANA) found that about half of the 10,000 nurses surveyed are thinking about leaving their current jobs—because they're worried about inadequate nurse staffing levels.
A new survey by the ANA shows nurses are looking for safer staffing levels.
According to the ANA, adequate staffing levels and the delivery of quality patient care are directly linked. But not every hospital or health care facility can boast that they have adequate nurse staffing levels.
“We all have heard from nurses that staffing is the number one concern, and their concern about quality of care and the diminishing role that quality is playing because there is a lack of staff,” said Rose Gonzalez, MPS, RN, director of government affairs for the ANA.
She added that many nurses are frustrated by what they believe to be an inability to influence staffing levels in their workplace. The survey was designed to get more feedback from nurses about those topics and the results confirmed much of what the ANA already suspected: a majority of nurses are worried.
“We believe that their responses validated our concern,” Gonzalez said, adding, “It should come as no surprise to anyone who works in an acute care setting.”
The poll found that 26.7 percent of the surveyed nurses believe that the staffing on their units and shifts is sufficient. Nearly 75 percent of nurses felt otherwise.
And 51.2 percent feel that the quality of nursing care has declined on their unit over the past year.
Gonzalez pointed to one question on the survey that asked nurses, “Would you feel confident having someone close to you receive care in the facility in which you work?” About 52 percent responded, “Yes,” but 48 percent responded, “No.”
“That’s pretty telling,” she said, explaining that it should be a red flag that a nurse wouldn’t want her own family to be cared for in the hospital where she works and is familiar with the staff and environment.
The ANA hopes that health care administrators will heed the results and take seriously the concerns of the nurses over safe staffing levels.
According to Gonzalez, there are also hopes for the success of a set of bills currently in Congress that could garner more attention for the issue. HR 4138 and its companion bills S73 are known as the RN Safe Staffing Act. The legislation would hold hospital accountable for setting up nurse-staffing ratios on a unit-by-unit basis, based on every unit’s specific needs and the input from nurses who staff them. Only a few states already have such policies in place.
In the meantime, Gonzalez wants to encourage nurses to submit their stories to the Web site SafeStaffingSavesLives.org and to reach out to state and federal elected officials.
“Their voices are important,” she said.
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