The current nursing shortage requires hospital administrators to adopt a proactive approach to managing nurse-patient ratios. After all, it remains a critical factor in ensuring the overall safety and well-being of patients. Additionally, employing too few nurses results in your current staff becoming overworked, burned out, and potentially leaving the field.
Let’s analyze a few strategies for fostering top-shelf care through the optimization of nurse-patient ratios. Right-sizing the staffing level at your hospital or medical office plays a crucial role in providing effective patient care. Here are some useful insights on ensuring your healthcare organization employs the right amount of nursing talent.
The Legal Requirement to Right-Size Nurse-Patient Ratios
Of course, optimizing your hospital’s nurse-patient ratio makes perfect sense when providing quality care. However, in some jurisdictions it effectively becomes a legal issue. For example, the federal requirement for hospitals certified for Medicare remains an important consideration for administrators. It requires these hospitals to “have adequate numbers of licensed registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and other personnel to provide nursing care to all patients as needed.”
Also keep in mind any state and local regulations on nursing coverage. Ensure you employ enough RNs and LPNs to meet these requirements to provide excellent patient care. Connect with a local medical staffing agency to source the healthcare talent you need.
Nurse Retention Depends on the Right Nurse-Patient Ratios
When nurses become overworked due to understaffing, it essentially causes a feedback loop. After all, suffering from burnout remains an important contributing factor to nursing talent leaving the field. As a result, your hospital might suffer an acute nursing shortage due to a low retention rate.
In short, overworking your nurses obviously makes optimizing your nurse-patient ratios a more difficult process. Employ the right number of nursing staff or risk low retention hampering your ability to care for patients.
Leverage a Nurse-Driven Staffing Approach
Ultimately, involving your senior nurses in your hospital’s staffing planning offers a great opportunity to build effective nurse-patient ratios. These medical professionals have the right experience and advice to meaningfully contribute to your staffing approach. Their background leads to helpful insights on the right ratio to ensure patients receive the care they deserve. Also take into account their other advice on reducing stress and burnout among your staff to boost your retention rate.
If your hospital needs to add talent, connect with the experts at CHN Health Care Group. As one of the top nursing staffing agencies in Boston, we provide exceptional professionals to provide top-shelf patient care. Schedule a meeting with us to discuss your current staffing plans.