Scenario: Nurse Staffing Ratios and Performance Improvement

Many studies have documented associations between nurse staffing levels, performance, and patient outcomes over the years. Adequate nurse staffing is associated with the following:

• Reduced hospital re-admissions
• Lower incidence of adverse patient events
• Fewer errors
• Reduced mortality
• Effective staff performance and other positive outcomes

Regulatory bodies, including state boards and accreditation organizations, have enforced staffing level recommendations.

Despite the enforcement of staffing policies, many healthcare managers still take chances to assign nurses to a much larger number of patients. Ms. Adams, the night shift supervisor on the children’s unit at the Global Medical Behavioral Hospital, assigned the entire unit to one nurse instead of three. Her reason was that other nurses had called in earlier that afternoon.

It was late that very night that fight broke out in the unit. The nurse was alone and could not control the children who overpowered her and caused many damages to property.

An investigation was ordered, and the HR department was blamed for not pushing fast enough to hire nurses. The HR department cited several problems with recruiting, and in fact, the director of the HR department had said that staff turnover is their biggest problem. She further stated that they had relied on traditional recruiting methods instead of using technology such as recruitment apps, social medial, other Web sites, agencies, and the human resource information system (HRIS).

The American Nurses Association (ANA) identifies three general approaches to ensure adequate staffing, as follows (Wolters Kluwer, 2018):

• Requiring hospitals to have a nurse-driven staffing committee
• Mandating specific nurse-to-patient ratios through legislation or regulation
• Requiring facilities to disclose staffing levels to the public or a regulatory body

This facility has not followed the ANA recommendation, and now Nurse Adams is holding the hospital liable for her injuries. In addition, some of the parents are now suing the hospital for injuries to their children.

You are now hired to address this issue and advance recommendations to prevent these problems in the hospital. Prepare a 5-page report (excluding cover page and references) addressing the following issues:

• Provide HR with information regarding the use of technology in recruiting, selection, and retention.
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of Internet recruiting?
• What types of information are available in HRIS data, and how are they used in the recruitment process?
• What are the benefits of using job sites in recruiting candidates?
• What is the importance of workforce development, and how does it help combat workforce shortages and the changing dynamics of healthcare?
• What are the critical issues in managing staffing and workloads?
• What steps can a healthcare manager take to deal with staff turnover?
• What recommendations would you give healthcare managers to improve staff relationships in their units or organizations?
• Why is performance evaluation necessary for all staff?
• Name some tools you would use in performance evaluation and their uses.

Cite 4–5 sources in APA format.

Submitting your assignment in APA format means, at a minimum, you will need the following:

• Title page: Remember the running head. The title should be in all capitals.
• Length: 5 pages minimum
• Abstract: This is a summary of your paper, not an introduction. Begin writing in third person.
• Body: This begins on the page following the title page and abstract page and must be double-spaced (be careful not to triple- or quadruple-space between paragraphs). The typeface should be 12-pt. Times Roman or 12-pt. Courier in regular black type. Do not use color, bold type, or italics, except as required for APA-level headings and references. The deliverable length of the body of your paper for this assignment is 5 pages. In-body academic citations to support your decisions and analysis are required. A variety of academic sources is encouraged.
• Reference page: References that align with your in-body academic sources are listed on the final page of your paper. The references must be in APA format using appropriate spacing, hanging indent, italics, and uppercase and lowercase usage as appropriate for the type of resource used. Remember, the Reference page is not a bibliography but a further listing of the abbreviated in-body citations used in the paper. Every referenced item must have a corresponding in-body citation.