Nurse Turnover’s Impact on Quality of Care

Subject: Nursing
Pages: 2
Words: 465
Reading time:
2 min
Study level: Bachelor

Antwi, Y. A., & Bowblis, J. R. (2018). The impact of nurse turnover on quality of care and mortality in nursing homes: Evidence from the great recession. American Journal of Health Economics, 4(2), 131−163.

This article focuses on the effects of turnover of nurses on the quality of nursing home care and mortality. This estimation uses a variable that is fixed and effective in a particular assessment. For instance, in this case, it is about using the rate of unemployment of nurses as an instrument for turnover assessment. The article states that ignoring endogeneity causes underestimation of the effect of nursing turnover on care quality in a sample taken from nursing homes in California. It also suggests that an increase of 10% points in turnover of the nurses leads to an increase in the number of deficiencies by 1.8 in an annual regulatory survey, and an increase of 16.5% in mortality (Antwi & Bowblis, 2018). Thus, a rise in death rates and low-quality care in other health care services are evident results of turnover.

Moreover, the article also highlights that there is a need for training new employees to be familiar with the firm’s operations and procedures, and the training is costly. It, thus, demonstrates that excessive turnover of the employees can be a source of concern. The authors state that retaining an ineffective workforce leads to a poor performance whose outcome is inadequate health care service. The writers maintain that turnover has received little concern from economists although it is a potential and relatively important determinant of healthcare industry output. The article also suggests that turnover may increase the cost of operation and reduce the productivity of care delivery and effectiveness in health facilities. The writing highlights that the act of assigning the same patients to nurses can affect the formation of personal bonds, which can, in turn, lead to better outcomes in health care.

According to this manuscript, because of low direct-care workers turnover and high staffing, there is an enhancement in the quality of home nursing care. Improvement in the recession, according to the research evidence provided in this article, occurs among people who are older than 85 (Antwi & Bowblis, 2018). This article states that research conducted outside the sector of health care has shown that high turnover of employees can cause diminished profits, poor customer service, and low productivity. According to the information in this article, the lack of outside options with higher payment and promotion discourages workers from seeking employment in other sectors. The motivation of those workers with desirable traits facilitates their leaving and, as a result, those who remain employed have a lower quality of performance. Improvement of outcomes can also be realized by firing inefficient employees and enhancing the working conditions of the employees that remain.

Reference

Antwi, Y. A., & Bowblis, J. R. (2018). The impact of nurse turnover on quality of care and mortality in nursing homes: Evidence from the great recession. American Journal of Health Economics, 4(2), 131−163. Web.