When an employee is bombarded with too many patients under their care, it causes stress to the employee, and as an effect they lose concern for the patient. Many geriatric care facilities are under staffed, and the pay rate is very low compared to other health care professions. Nurse’s aides have a very high job turnover rate which leads to lack of bonding with their patient, and the patient receiving a new caregiver every few months, which will cause confusion to both the patient and the employee. Inadequate staffing is a huge factor and problem in nursing homes. According to the U.S. House of Representatives, majority of nursing homes do not have enough staff to meet the levels recommended by federal officials; the levels recommended are 3.45 nursing hours per patient daily.
This in turn exposes not only patients, but also nurses to a significant amount of noise and alarms, ultimately leading to the clinical problem called alarm fatigue. As defined by the Joint Commission, alarm fatigue is known as the desensitization of medical staff as a result of sensory overload. This overload ultimately results in a delay of an alarm being answered, and sometimes someone completely missing the alarm altogether (The Joint Commission, 2015). Alarm fatigue has been recognized as a contributing
Malpractice can be increasing because of a severe shortage of trained nurses, and it happened because of a few factors: nurses are required to work longer shifts; they can lead to fatigue and increase the risk for an error; also short Nursing courses providing degrees with no sufficient time to train nurses results in malpractice. Nurses who lack the experience and knowledge fail their duty, and when it happen not only them but also the hospital in which they work bear the consequences. Because most nurses are employees of hospitals, hospitals are frequently defendant in nursing malpractice cases. Another factor that contributes to nurse malpractice is miscommunication. Even though it is unintentional it can lead to tragedy.
We all want to believe everyone with a business is on the up and up that are not always the case. Back some years ago people once cared about what us as the consumer thought, now most people within the medical field is only working for a check and not the care of its patients. With the lack of caring comes to many working hours and insensitive practices. That’s where the laws come in. if it was not for the laws patients, family and friends will become subject to inhumane services.
The High Burnout and Turnover Rate of Registered Nurses Registered Nurses are the backbone of any major medical facility. They are the medical personnel you have your first interaction with in a hospital. Nurses are trained to put the needs of others before themselves. They endure emotional stress, as well as, other stress factors usually involved with the healthcare profession. There is an ongoing shortage of nurses, which along with emotional stressors, is said to be the cause of burnout among nurses.
ABSTRACT The company discussed is a large medical insurance group, employing thousands of across the country, and internationally, many of whom had longevity with the firm. Recently, the company underwent a reorganization of its structure. The failure of the new vision will be demonstrated by revealing the organizational disabilities of the corporation and the failed recognition of the skills necessary to have a successful outcome. Defining self by your position: Employees were expected to take on additional responsibilities, or change some of their current duties. This immediately had a chaotic effect on the employees.
Once in a while overtime may be beneficial, but logbooks indicate that it is been used too frequently in hospitals and other nursing facilities. In fact, a study has shown that of 5317 work shifts, 40% exceeded 12 hours (Rogers, Hwang, Scott, Aiken, & Dinges, 2004). In some instances, nurses are notified only an hour prior to knowing that they will be staying overtime. Nurses can be subjected to threats of disciplinary action or dismissal from their job if they refuse to stay the extra shift (Widowfield, 2004). This often leaves nurses feeling powerless over their work life as well as their personal life.
In my work life at the hospital there always seems to be vicarious trauma happening between staff creating distraction throughout the day. Once again walking away is key, I use some of the preventive practices from Harrison and Westwood (2009) Developing
Transporting a patient from a hospital bed to a wheelchair is one of many examples of this procedure. The underlying issue with these standard practices is the constant strain that is applied to the caregivers’ bodies when lifting their patients and the lack of mechanical patient lifts that are both affordable and maintainable. In the United States alone, nursing aides and orderlies suffer the highest prevalence (18.8%) and report the most annual cases (269,000) of work-related back pain among female workers. [1] The notion that a first world country has a significant problem in its health care industry is alarming, considering the financial resources and capabilities it possesses and the fact that we have not even yet considered the statistics of work-related back problems in 3rd world countries. Fore/aft Lift Figure 1: Fore/aft lift technique [2].
Employees who work in chaotic environments that exert extreme demands such as in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) have been diagnosed as being at high risk for burnout (Embriaco et al., 2007). These employees frequently worked overtime due to the nature of their jobs. IUC's are opened 24 hours per day and employees work in a shift system which includes a night shift. Patients at ICU's are often in life-threatening situations requiring doctors and nurses to be on constantly alert and responsive at very short notice; often decisions have to be made about suspending life-support treatment for patients. The environment in an ICU is extremely chaotic and stressful; prolonged exposure to ICUs make health care professional susceptible to burnout.