previous experience
can you response to my class mate :
Based off of previous experience and further research, I believe the nurse-patient ratio is very beneficial to nursing practice. This law requires that a nurse must care for no more than six patients in a psychiatric unit, five patients in a medical-surgical unit, four pediatric patients, three patients in a labor and delivery unit, and two patients in intensive care units (Yoder-Wise, 2019). Appropriate nurse staffing helps achieve clinical and economic improvements in patient care, including a reduction in medication errors, patient mortality, hospital readmissions, and length of stay. It has also been shown to reduce nurse fatigue and burnout. Currently, California is the only state to have adopted a mandatory nurse-patient ratio, but comparing the pre-post differences in occupational illness and injury rates between California and the rest of the United States, it was found that implementation of nurse-patient ratio standards were associated with a statistically significant reduction in injury rates among both registered nurses and licensed practical nurses (Leigh et al., 2014). By placing a limit as to how many patients a nurse can care for on a particular unit, nurses are able to focus on the individual needs of their patients and provide patient-specific care without feeling unable to perform certain nursing tasks due to time restraints and other demands.
References
Leigh, J., Markis, C., Iosif, A.-M., & Romano, P. (2015). California’s Nurse-to-Patient Ratio Law and Occupational Injury. International Archives of Occupational & Environmental Health, 88(4), 477–484. https://doi-org.ezproxy.hsutx.edu:4443/10.1007/s00420-014-0977-y (Links to an external site.)
