Nursing ratios

My Personal/Professional Strategies to Increase My Power

            The problem of nurse staff ratio to patients in a hospital setting is wanting and therefore calls for calls for change. In advocating for better staffing, I will use the following strategies for preparation and convincing the legislature institute improvements in the nursing profession. First, I will use my position of influence as the head of nurses to seek audience with the legislature. While my main aim will be raise staffing concerns with the legislature, it will be necessary that to prepare data for presentation. For this reason, I will begin by mobilizing nurses, conduct interviews, and use questionnaires to gather factual information of their employing hospital, work environment and the workload of patients each one takes care of (Aiken, 2010). This will then be interpreted and summarized.
Besides, I will seek response from various hospitals related to quality of care, nurse assessed outcomes and patient to nurse workloads. The aggregate responses from this strategy will be critical in supporting petitions to the legislator. The hospital level empirical measures as well as the data from this exercise will be important in eliminating bias and enhancing validity. Importantly, providing the legislator with information of workload per nurse on how many patients a single nurse cares for will be critical in driving home the need for change and staffing improvements.
In addition to involving nurses in calling for improvement in hospital staffing, I will also involve the general public and patients in the process. This will be through organizing meetings that create awareness of the staffing problem and consequent poor quality care. The purpose for this will be to gain substantial support and numbers critical for calling for change (Mark, Harles &, Spetz, 2009). Besides, there will be signing of petitions calling for change.
Legislator information sheet
The process of gathering important information on the need for improvement of hospital working environment and quality patient care through adequate hospital; staffing supplies relevant information to be presented to the legislator. The information in the legislator information sheet will include:

• Health care stakeholder in accredited organizations, medical foundations, many nurse associations and hospital organizations within the healthcare system are actively seeking his interventions in bringing a solution to problems related to nursing staff.
• Reports on patient-to-nurse ratios are below the benchmark set by the States mandate. The results of understaffing are significant as seen in higher reports of unfavorable outcomes.
• There is an increase in poor quality of care in understaffed hospitals, poor work environments and high burnout. There is need for better staffing as this will enhance quality of care and create excellent working environment.
• The nursing community seeks your involvement as well as that of the State in creating laws for minimum nursing staff ratios.
• There is need to bolster the educational infrastructure for nursing. I propose that this be carried out in nursing education where teams will be trained and nursing orientation supported. I also propose that local hospital be centers for in-service education t improve workforce.
• I also propose that your office offer financial incentives for health care organizations. The aim of the incentive is to encourage these organizations to invest in providing nursing services. This will in turn increase nursing workforce.
• There is need for the State to create a legislation for nursing staff ratio. This will achieve the goal for improved quality of care, retention of nurses, will improve recruitment while reducing nurse workloads.

References

Aiken, L.H., Sloane, D.M., Cimiotti, J.P., Clarke, S.P., Flynn, L., Seago, J.A., Spetz, J., & Smith, H. (2010, April 9). Implications of the California nurse staffing mandate  for other states. Health Services Research.

Mark B, Harless DW, Spetz J. (2009).California’s minimum-nurse-staffing legislation and   nurses’ wages. Health Affairs–Web Exclusive.