NURS 6050Week 7 Discussion, Health Care Policy Essay

There are many health care issues that medical staff face on a daily basis. The one health care issue that I currently am directly affected by and that needs addressed is in regard to the nurse to patient ratio. On my unit of work, this is an ongoing safety issue and increases the risk for sentinel events to occur. Currently, the American Nurses Association is working feverishly to develop a law advocating for all over the United States to be able to give safe and effective care to patients. nurs 6050 Essay Assignments “The ANA and Constituent & State Nurses Associations (C/SNAs) in the states are promoting legislation to hold hospitals accountable for the development and implementation of valid, reliable, unit-by-unit nurse staffing plans.” (Safe Staffing – American Nurses Association, n.d.)NURS 6050Week 7 Discussion, Health Care Policy Essay

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The current federal regulation which is 42 of Federal Regulations (42CFR 482.23 (b) requires all hospitals to have the safe number of patients assigned to one nurse for all the hospitals to participate in Medicaid. This law was based on ensuring that quality care be given to all participants of Medicaid. This law states that “A nursing facility must have sufficient nursing staff to provide nursing and related services to attain or maintain the highest practicable physical, mental and psychosocial well-being of each resident in accordance with a written plan of care.” (The National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care (formerly NCCNHR), n.d.).
Many times, then not, this policy seems to be ineffective in hospital settings as there have been continual nurse to staff ratio issues with those that are insured by Medicaid. Over the past 6 years, I have noticed that most hospitals assign teams by acuity of the unit when considering the daily staffing. I honestly don’t think that many are even aware of this federal regulation. nurs 6050 Essay Assignments The current effects of this policy in relation to cost have been positive due to the fact that all ensured by Medicaid are in the hospital, and have easy access. However, the main adverse effect is going to be the quality due to the fact that no one takes into account appropriate nurse to staff ratio. This policy is in no way affecting my nursing practice other than the fact that almost every nurse I talk to that works on my unit is overwhelmed and exhausted with the unfair staffing. We have a high turn-over rate due to this issue. “Enforcement of the federal staffing standard is extremely rare. The lack of decisions means either that facilities cited with staffing deficiencies did not appeal or that the deficiencies were cited at such a low scope and severity that no remedy was imposed (and therefore no appeal was possible under the federal enforcement system, which allows appeals only when remedies are actually imposed), or both” (Nurse Staffing: Requirements of Federal Law CMA, n.d)
The Kingdon’s Model is an effective way to help influence a federal change with regard to the issues of nurse to staff ratios. There are four ways according to this model. These include policy, problem, political and window opportunity. The problem stream “can be marked by systematic indicators of problem, by a sudden crisis” in which feedback is given. (Milstead, J. A., 2016, p. 51).
The first way to help this issue to be resolved according to this model is in relation to policy. This current policy discussed earlier is not really taken in to account so that is requires us to act and make our voice heard. How are we going to do that? By taking our problems to officials and those capable of charge to better out hospital setting. Congress has continued to fail to make a federal law requiring that there is always safe patient to staff ratios regardless of insurance coverage and in reference to individual hospital acuity level. Managers and the “powers to be” say that we always look at the overall statistics of each hospital and staff based on what they find. Each unit should be unique.nurs 6050 Essay Assignments This would not enable the “powers that be” to do that and would require legally for them to staff each unit based on the true acuity and not on a statistic.NURS 6050Week 7 Discussion, Health Care Policy Essay
Currently, the ANA (American Nurses Association) is working on the Registered Nurse Staffing Act that will hopefully be passed one day to help reduce the incidence of sentinel events and the burn out of nurses.nurs 6050 Essay Assignments NURS 6050Week 7 Discussion, Health Care Policy Essay