Nurse Patient Acuity

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patient acuity; the higher the acuity, the more care is required. Thus, increased patient acuity and the assumption of additional responsibilities appear to be directly related to job dissatisfaction and also deterioration of the quality of care. The care of the patient has increasingly become complex as inpatient L.O.S. or length of stay has contracted and acuity increased. The author suggested that by improving the care environment, staffing of the nurse and supporting higher education for the staff significantly increases better patient outcomes, and also balances the cost of better staffing through better outcomes (Fitzpatrick, Anen, & Martinez Soto, 2013).
In order to address this issue on patient care related to nurse staffing, stakeholders (nurses, patients, physicians, nursing organization/lobbyists, researchers, employers, etc) have collaborated and discussed about nurse-patient ratios. The nurse-patient ratio is about limiting the maximum number of patients that can
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Buerhaus (2010) said that mandatory hospital nurse staffing regulations would be more harmful than helpful. He mentioned that there are regulation costs that must be considered, not only in monetary terms but also time and effort. He also discussed the opportunity costs to nursing that goes with a mandated nurse staffing regulation; nurses would spend time, energy and expense on this issue that other issues important to the profession may not be addressed. The author also mentioned the hospitals and how they may be affected, the additional costs that nurse staffing regulations will need and how employer-employee tension could arise. Lastly, the author mentioned that there are political considerations; that such legislation is another unnecessary government involvement and added bureaucracy serving special interests (Buerhaus,