K Reedy's Blog: Evidence Based Article

K Reedy's Blog: Evidence Based Article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4440316/?report=classic The article I chose is a study done for the purpose of determin...

Evidence Based Article

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4440316/?report=classic

The article I chose is a study done for the purpose of determining the relationship between missed nursing care and the frequency of hospital readmission.   The study was performed using data from 419 acute care hospitals in the US which included nurse staffing, patient data, and readmission of patients with heart failure within 30 days of discharge from the hospital.  The results of the study indicate that due to frequently missed nursing care and tasks left undone during the nursing shift, there is approximately one in five older patients with heart failure that are readmitted within 30 days of discharge. The study shows that frequently missed nursing care include; talking to and comforting patients, developing and updating care plans, and educating patients and families. 

The prevalence of missed care is linked to workloads, environments, nurse to patient ratio, inadequate resources available, and lack of time.  The study shows that nurses working in more favorable conditions are less likely to report missing care during their shift, which reduces the number of hospital readmission.

 

Some interventions that have improved nursing quality of care are better staffing ratios, technology improvements for documenting, monetary incentives, investments in staff development, and adequate managerial resources. 

I chose this article based on personal and professional reasons.  During my clinical experience this semester, I’ve seen how nurse to patient ratio seems to affect the quality of care that patients receive.  Many of the nurses I have worked with seemed to be overloaded with documentation and caring for several patients that required more direct care than they were able to give due to their ratio of patients to care for.  There were several occasions that the nurses were required to stay passed their scheduled shift to complete documentation.  I also learned a lot about time management in the hospital while caring for patients and trying to complete paperwork.  Hopefully, that will improve with time.  I also chose this article because of my personal experience with the nursing care of my mother.  She was in the SICU after a major surgery for over 3 weeks and did not have a good prognosis after the surgery.  I believe that her quality of care was directly related to the SICU nurses having a lower patient ratio than med-surge nurses.  She received thorough care from the SICU nurses and made it through an extremely complicated recovery.  She was transferred from SICU to a med surge floor and died of aspiration 3 days later.  There were several occasions during those 3 days that the nursing care was inadequate which could be due to the higher patient ratio.  That experience is one that drives me to give the best care I possibly can to the clinical patients that I have cared for.