Safe Nurse Staffing Ratios Improve Care and Reduce Burnout

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Nurse staffing ratios, or the number of nurses to patients, dramatically impact the nurses' ability to deliver quality care and, therefore, overall patient experiences and outcomes. Poor staffing ratios also lead to burnout and high turnover rates among nurses. Ultimately, this all impacts a hospital's bottom line and nurses' passion for their work. 

Read Here How Hospitals and Facilities Can Increase Nurse Retention

Unfortunately, safe staffing ratios are not the national narrative in all healthcare settings. However, they should be! Keep reading to learn more about what constitutes safe nurse staffing ratios and why they matter.

Nurse Staffing Issues

Providing the best possible healthcare to all patients is the goal and objective of the care delivery system. In recent years, healthcare staffing shortages have directly affected the proper care of patients, mainly through inadequate nurse-to-patient ratios.

The problems of understaffing nurses are straightforward, as nurses are patients' direct and close caregivers. When nurses are understaffed, patients tend to spend more time in hospitals, hospital-acquired infections are more common, and there are risks to the health of patients and the mental and physical health of nurses and other healthcare personnel.

These problems occur mainly when a healthcare facility or hospital cannot adequately cover shifts. The reasons for hospitals not being able to cover all the open PRN shifts in a schedule are many:

Many factors have affected the situation with nurse staffing. Nevertheless, there are many solutions to ensure that the country's noblest profession can be revived and that more and more people can safely dedicate themselves to nursing.

Find Out if An Accelerated Nursing Program is Right for You

What is Safe Nurse Staffing?

Caregiver holding the hand of a patient assisting them to walk
Caregivers and family members can work together to help keep patients safe.

Nurse and patient safety are essential terms in any healthcare facility. Nurse safety depends on many factors. One of the main ones is safe staffing ratios, which means that there is always an adequate number of nurses per patient, with the necessary capacity for each assignment and condition to provide care to these patients.

Why Safe Nurse Staffing Ratios Matter

  • Decreases mortality in patients in that hospital.
  • It helps reduce preventable events in the hospital, e.g., infections, falls, etc.
  • Patients recover faster, so their hospital stay is shorter. 
  • When there is safe nurse staffing, nurses can take sufficient breaks, enjoy their work, have a satisfying personal life, and take better care of patients.

What are Safe Staffing Ratios?

A safe staffing ratio means that there are enough nurses for each patient. This number is determined by the degree of care needed for each patient and varies significantly from one type of nurse to another. For example, caring for a patient with a simple fracture is not the same as caring for a patient in the ICU (intensive care unit). It is estimated that an ICU nurse should not have more than one, possibly two, patients. In the ER (emergency room), nurses can have about three patients each; in pediatrics, it is also suggested to have three patients each.

This is a safety measure for the correct care of the patients- and it is a safety measure for the nurses themselves: if they do not achieve a safe staffing ratio, they can end up stressed and overwhelmed by the excess of work, make mistakes that can be fatal, and can cost them their jobs. However, in the real world, many jobs will require you to take on more patients than ideal. Consider choosing a nursing specialty that helps you care for a proper ratio of patients at most facilities.

Read How to Choose a Nursing Specialty That You'll Love

How Many Patients do Medsurg Nurses Have?

Medsurg (medical/surgical unit) nurses should have few patients, given that they need to attend to them on an almost personal basis for most of their needs. It is estimated that the correct nurse/patient ratio at Medsurg is one nurse for every three patients. However, these units in many facilities, leave their nurses short-staffed, and they may end up with five or more patients.

How to Know the Staffing Ratios at a Hospital or Facility?

This can be found by asking the hospitals directly or by looking for available public data. If there is doubt, the best thing to do is to find another place to work, taking care of your profession, your licenses, and the patients. By downloading Nursa, you can pick up PRN jobs at facilities nearby to find out how the flow of staffing is at various locations.

Learn More About Healthcare Staffing Trends Here

Questions a Nurse Should Ask About Their Assignment

nurse at home on laptop thinking about picking up PRN shifts
Before picking up a PRN shift or other type of nursing job, you should ask yourself some questions first.

It is also essential to know whether or not the nurse can do an assignment, and for this purpose, here are some helpful questions that nurses can ask themselves:

  • What is the assignment, and what are the characteristics of the patient?
  • Do I have the expertise to attend to this patient?
  • Is this assignment temporary? Is it an emergency?

These questions protect nurses from doing a job they aren't qualified to do, and asking questions helps them never to take on an unsafe assignment.

Overall, nurse staffing is quite complex, but it all comes down to having enough staff to meet the needs of patients. Thanks to Nursa, hospitals, and healthcare facilities can meet their urgent staffing needs quickly and easily. It's free to use, and nurses can decide where to work to have some control over the staffing ratios they experience.

Blog published on:
March 29, 2023

Miranda is a Registered Nurse, Medical Fact Checker, and Publishing Editor at Nursa. Her work has been featured in publications including the American Nurses Association (ANA), Healthcare IT Outcomes, International Living, and more.

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