Please respond with a paragraph to the following post, add citations and references.

For the last fourteen years of my nursing career, nursing ratio has been a dilemma for myself and fellow coworkers. I believe we can all agree that our nursing ratios affect patient safety, the quality of care provided and satisfaction rates. Yes, it’s true that each ratio is different depending on what unit you work. I currently work in a nineteen bed ICU with a variety of ages and diagnosis. Most of the time we have a 3:1 ratio due to short staffing, on a lucky day you might have a 2:1 ratio. It’s very stressful and unsafe to provide care to three critically ill patients. Many are total care, sedated, intubated with multiple drips infusing. Some may classify ventilator patients that is sedated as stable vent, however I will say that it’s a disaster waiting to happen with a 3:1 ratio. These ventilators and artificial airways are lifelines, if they are lost in any way then we are looking at respiratory arrest that will lead to cardiac arrest. I feel that regardless of where you work each patient has unique needs, leaving the ultimate decisions for enforced ratios up to the nurse providing patient care. Nurses who oversee too many patients run the risk of becoming stressed out or burned out leading to fatal mistakes. Too many nurses complain about not having enough time to provide adequate comfort and emotional support to patients and family members. Many also complain that they can’t provide proper patient education because of the lack of time. Nurses are driven out of the profession due to burnout. The fact is better ratios will enhance patient satisfaction, reduce medication errors, decrease mortality rates and prevent readmissions. Patient safety is always #1, adding extra staff would be costly but it will improve patient outcomes. According to the articles Quality versus Quantity: Nurses workload and patient safety, one of the major problems associated with the healthcare system is intense workloads of hospital nurses. This leads to increased risk for making errors and creates a communication gap between nurses and physicians. When nurses and physicians don’t communicate then collaboration is affected in a negative way. How do we create better nursing ratios?

Reference:

Nauree Akbar, A. (2016) Quality versus Quantity: Nurses Workload and Patient’s Safety. Journal of Pioneering Medical Sciences. Vol.6 Issue 2, p. 70.