American Nurses Association - Essay Example

American Nurses Association American Nurses Association Introduction The American Nurses Association ANA) isregarded as one full-service professional organization where close to 3.1 million nurses who are registered are represented through the various constituents as well as state nurses associations and organizational affiliates to it. This association of nurses has a major mandate of fostering the practice of nursing through ensuring maintaining of the high-quality standard in the nursing practice. The mission statement of the ANA is, "Nurses advancing our profession to improve health for all." Through its mission statement, it is clear that the main mission that the association is there for is to advance the profession of nursing to improve health care for all. The association also has some goals under which it operates. These goals are like the pillars of its operation. They include, fostering high standards of nursing practice, lobbying the Congress and the healthcare regulatory agencies on such issues that re capable of affecting nurses and the public, protecting both the positive and realistic view if nurses and promoting and protecting the right of nurses at the workplace. The ANA organization addresses various issues including those dealing with leadership, nursing quality, staffing, compensation, professional standards and improving nursing practice, which are all under nursing practice. On the other hand, the association also handles ethical issues such as the end of life, code of ethics as well as courage and distress. Looking at staffing, for example, there are various issues that the association is addressing. The association acknowledges that staffing issues are those of going concern that affects both the nurses as well as the patients being served. The nurse-to-patient ratio usually determines the satisfaction level of the patients taken care of by the nurses. As such, the higher the ratio is, the more satisfied the patients usually are. Sometimes, when the ratio of nurses to patients is low, the patients may have to stay longer in the hospital waiting to receive services. This increase in the length of stay in the hospital has a lot of losses to the patient. One such loss is that the patient may stay longer to contract new infections, and the hospital bill will also be higher when a patient stays longer in the hospital. To provide an optimal nurse-to-patient ratio has always been one big challenge to the association. There are also various challenges that have been contributed by shortened hospital stays as well as rising patient acuity. The American Nurses Association has been seen to try address this issue of adequate staffing for a very long time. It proposes that it has been shown how adequate staffing levels has a lot of good for both the nurses and the patients. Apart from the fact that adequate staffing reduces medical and medication errors, it also decreases patient complications, decreases mortality rates, improves nurse retention and job satisfaction, improves patient satisfaction, decreases nurse burnout as well as reduces fatigue in nurses. The ANA urges health care leaders to create innovative strategies using collaborative efforts to create solutions that will be appreciated as being of benefit to both the patients and registered health care nurses (ANA, Key Findings from Research Studies on Safe RN Staffing, 2014). To arrive at staffing solutions, the association requires that leadership support and recognition to allocate an assured number of registered nurses who are well trained and capable of delivering in their mandate to provide a safe and quality care to the patients. According to the association, to provide optimal staffing for nurses, an approach that acknowledges the various unique settings of the patient during various times of the day and also includes the assessment of the patients acuity, unlicensed, assistive personnel as well as the education level, training within specific settings and the skills, must be considered. Health Needs of Culturally Diverse Society Related to Staffing Staffing is not only important in ensuring patients and nurses satisfaction, but also in ensuring health needs in culturally diverse society are well taken care of. Culturally diverse society includes having various patients with diverse cultural beliefs and backgrounds. Some patients may require to be handled in various ways according to their traditional or cultural belief (ANA, Registered Nurse Safe Staffing Bill Introduced in Congress, 2013). Secondly, cultural diversity also considers the language diversity perspective. Various patients from different cultural backgrounds speak better in certain languages. As such, when staffing is done, consideration should be done to ensure registered nurses are adequately provided in a balanced manner to take are of cultural balance. This will ensure that nurses from certain cultural background assist with their rich cultural knowledge on how to provide care to those patients with similar cultural beliefs. At the same time, culturally sensitive staffing assists with the provision of various staff with the diverse language knowledge to help in communication with a patient who do not understand the common languages of communication such as English. Ethical/Legal Concerns in Delivery of Health Care Concerns of Issues The ethical significance of staffing also counts. For instance, ethically, staffing should be adequate to ensure the provision of high-quality services to the patients. At the same time, when staffing is done in an adequate manner, the nurses are not overworked to avoid them being fatigued and they also have fresh and relaxed minds to reduce the medical and medication errors that are usually witnessed a lot in the nursing practice. There are a high tendency and possibility that due to understaffing, patients will not receive standard care hence mortality rate may increase. It is also ethical that deaths that can be prevented due to staffing issues do not occur. For this reason, it is best that adequate staff with good training be provided so that such death can be prevented. At the same time, legally, theres a need for a particular ratio of patient-to-nurse so as to provide both patient and nurse satisfaction. Specific Nursing Roles and Educational Preparation of Nurses Related to Staffing Staffing should consider the roles that nurses are required to perform depending on the nature of patients they need to take care of. It also depends on the time of the day the care should be given as well as the magnitude of the patients. As such, nurses providing care to disabled patients or those with mental illness need to be increased in number to be more than nurses in charge of the out-patient section. Emergency section, as well as surgery sections, should also have adequate staffing. Most importantly, nurses in the various sections such as emergency and surgery sections should be provided with specific education and training required by the particular sections where they provide their care (Hertel, 2011). Staffing, should, therefore, consider the training and education needs of particular health care sections. Future Impact of Staffing on Professional Nursing Practice For the sake of the future of the professional nursing practice, it is impotent that the ANA takes staffing issue seriously to ensure the improvement of health care provision. To ensure that nurses do not go to the private sector and neglect the public sector, it is also important that the staffing issue is carried out by the ethical and legal requirement. One Strategy to Resolve Staffing Issue To deal with the staffing issue, various strategies should be taken into consideration. One such strategy takes into consideration variables such as patient acuity, nurse experience, the layout of a unit and the ancillary support to find out the appropriate number and the specialized training and education of nurses (ANA, 2009). To provide a sound nurse staffing, just a numbers game is not enough. Other factors such as the ones mentioned above must also be taken into play. Conclusion In a nutshell, staffing is a critical issue for nurses that the American Nurses Association deals with. When the nurse-to-patient ratio is sound, a lot of satisfaction is achieved for both the nurses and the patients. This is one way to improve the future of health care. Sound nurse-to-patient ratio helps reduce mortality rates, medical and medication errors. Education, experience as well as specific training for various health care units are amongst some of the factors to consider when dealing with nurse staffing issues. Here, the number is not only the factor to consider. References ANA. (2009). Safe Nurse Staffing: Looking Beyond the Raw Numbers. Vantage Point, 1(4), 1-13. ANA. (2013). Registered Nurse Safe Staffing Bill Introduced in Congress. American Nurse Association, 1-2. ANA. (2014). Key Findings from Research Studies on Safe RN Staffing. ANA Practice and Policy Department, 1-9. Hertel, R. (2011). Health Care Reform & Issues in Nursing: Regulating Patient Staffing: A Complex Issue. Academy of Medical-Surgery Nurses, 21(1), 3-77. Read More