STUDENT: Heather Hollister
PROJECT ADVISOR: Milton Evans
ABSTRACT
This is not a new issue dealing with nursing shortages. The purpose of this project is to see how the nursing shortages affect quality patient care and outcomes. The importance of having a lower nurse to patient ratio is improved quality of patient care and overall better patient outcomes. Based on what I witness at my job, a nurse that has eight patients is not able to spend adequate time with each of their patients which can result in important details of patient care being overlooked compared to a nurse that only has four patients and is able to spend more quality time with their patients. Within my research, I plan to look at the quality of patient care that patients are receiving while their nurse is working with low staffing, and to look at overall patient outcomes. I also plan to discuss the dangers of the shortage not only for the patients but how the nurses suffer as well.
Heather,
Your project is such a worthwhile topic and one that is near and dear to my heart. Nursing IS the number one most trusted profession and our patients count on us to provide quality care. As per your topic, inappropriate nurse:patient ratios have a negative effect on patient care.
The resources that you used supported the idea that better staffing means better care. There is legislation about mandatory staffing ratios that you could have indicated as “Next steps”. Also, it was difficult to read the font in the review of literature. I felt as though you could have paraphrased the most important points and make the font more readable.
This topic has been on-going since I was in nursing school. Such a hot topic to keep in mind as you enter the nursing workforce. There is so much information out there about quality of care. I appreciate the fact that you took on this topic.
You did a great job.
Annette Strubeck