Question

How does “minimum staffing” impact your ability to meet your nursing budgeted numbers?

Answer 1

Minimum staffing does not be propottionate to compromised patient care. It refers to maintaining high quality nursing care with minimum satffing as per the patient requirements and avoiding unnecessary crowding with work force and ineffective utilisation of full potentials of the available staffs. Minimum staffing in a wiser way will help to maintain patient care in an economical manner.

Appropriate staffing of nurses is critical for delivering safe and quality care that directly affects the care outcomes.Nursing is an essential and inevitable part of the healthcare system. As nursing care delivery is a multifaceted process, it is a complex process to identify appropriate nurse staffing.The solution is not increasing the count of staff nurses beyond what is minimally necessary in a departement. All health care settings must have a proper staffing guidelines that are prepared after analysing nursing sensitive outcomes and the number of consumers pertaining to that departement. This will help in determining the adequate number of nurses necessary for a particular area.

Proper staffing means allotting the adequate number of skilled nurses to a care situation without compromising on the quality of care ; meeting client centered and organizational goals ; meeting the rules and regulations pertaining to that particular state and also providing a quality work environment. Adjustments in staffing should also be considered inorder to incorporate mentoring and skill development needs of nurses, including novice nurses.

Organizations must have a proper staffing plans that clearly depicts an insightful method for determining the levels of staffing and skill mix, and should be favourable to change based on periodical analysis of evaluation data.