Professional Strategies to Increase My Power
The problem of nurse staff ratio to patients in a hospital setting is wanting and therefore calls for change. In advocating for better staffing, I will use the following strategies to prepare and convince the legislative institute to improve the nursing profession. First, I will use my position of influence as the head of nurses to seek an audience with the legislature. While my main aim will be to raise staffing concerns with the legislature, it will be necessary to prepare data for the presentation. For this reason, I will begin by mobilizing nurses, conducting interviews, and using questionnaires to gather factual information about their employing hospital, work environment and the workload of patients each one takes care of (Aiken et al., 2010). This will then be interpreted and summarized.
Besides, I will seek a response from various hospitals about quality of care, the nurse assessed outcomes and patient to nurse workloads. The aggregate responses from this strategy will be critical in supporting petitions to the legislator. The hospital-level empirical measures, as well as the data from this exercise, will be important in eliminating bias and enhancing validity. In addition, providing the legislator with information on workload per nurse on how many patients a single nurse cares for will be critical in driving home the need for change and staffing improvements.
In addition to involving nurses in calling for an improvement in hospital staffing, I will also involve the general public and patients in the process. This will be through organizing meetings that create awareness of the staffing problem and consequently poor quality care. The purpose for this will be to gain substantial support and numbers critical for calling for change (Mark, Harles &, Spetz, 2009). Besides, there will be signing petitions that call for change.
Legislator information sheet
The process will entail gathering important information on the need of improving the hospital’s working environment and high-quality patient care through the adequate hospital; staffing supplies and other relevant information will be presented to the legislator. The data in the legislator information sheet will include:
Health care stakeholders in accredited organizations, medical foundations, several nurse associations and hospital organizations within the healthcare system are actively seeking interventions in bringing a solution to problems related to nursing staff.
Reports on patient-to-nurse ratios are below the benchmark set by the States mandate. The results of understaffing are significant as seen in past medical reports.
There is an increase in poor quality of care in understaffed hospitals, poor work environments and high burnout. There is a need for better staffing as this will enhance the quality of care and create an excellent working environment.
The nursing community seeks your involvement as well as that of the State in creating laws for minimum nursing staff ratios.
There is a need to bolster the educational infrastructure for nursing. I propose that this should be carried out in nursing education whereby teams will be trained and nursing orientation supported. I also propose that local hospital settings should be centers for in-service education to improve the workforce.
I also propose that the office should offer financial incentives for health care organizations. The aim of the incentive is to encourage these organizations to invest in providing nursing services. This will in turn increase the nursing workforce.
There is a need for the State to create legislation for the nursing staff ratio. This will achieve the goal for improved quality of care, and retention of nurses will improve recruitment while reducing nurse workloads.
References
Aiken, L.H., Sloane, D.M., Cimiotti, J.P., Clarke, S.P., Flynn, L., Seago, J.A., Spetz, J., & Smith, H. (2010). Implications of the California nurse staffing mandate for other states. Health Services Research 3(2), 14-19.
Mark, B. Harless, D.W, & Spetz, J. (2009). California’s minimum-nurse-staffing legislation and nurses’ wages. Health Affairs–Web Exclusive 4(1), 24-28.