Level of Nurse Staffing
At least one adequate measure for evaluating the quality of
care provided by nursing homes is the “level of nurse staffing.” Nurse
staffing should be measured both in terms of the quality of the staff as well
as the sheer numbers of the staff. Unfortunately, unlike the home in this
article, nursing homes frequently cut corners with the level of nurse
staffing—all to maximize profits.
To provide proper care, nursing homes must hire competent staff—from
nurse aides to registered nurses to nursing home directors or
administrators. In the course of our nursing home litigation practice, we
routinely encounter unqualified staff charged with the duty to provide skilled
care to residents: Nurse aides with little or no experience and
training, and registered nurses who repeatedly fail to train, or even
communicate with, these nurse aides.
This is a critical failure for many nursing homes.
Nurse aides are the ones that provide the majority of daily care for
residents. And as such, it is imperative that the charge or floor nurses
appropriately train and communicate with these aides. For instance,
consider the all-to-common nursing home resident at risk for pressure sores or
ulcers. It is the nurse aide who has the responsibility to re-position
and appropriately turn the residents every one to two hours. The
re-positioning of residents at risk for pressure sores is a key component of
care to avoid such sores. When the aides are inept or not properly
trained, or where the charge nurses fail to instruct or otherwise communicate
with aides on their re-positioning responsibilities and techniques, nursing
home residents inevitably suffer severe and debilitating skin wounds.
The same is true regarding the numbers of staff
employed. Many nursing home companies repeatedly save money by limiting
the numbers of nurses and nurse aides to staff their nursing homes. This
is a critical omission of care in exchange for increased corporate
profits. The nursing staff is charged with responsibilities of providing
all-encompassing care for residents, including assisting residents with their
activities of daily living, such as bathing, feeding, dressing, etc. This
same limited staff, as mentioned above, is responsible to provide care to avoid
future injury or harm, such as frequent re-positioning to prevent pressure
sores. Where limited staff are charged with these responsibilities, the
unfortunate outcomes are predictable.
If you are considering a nursing home for a loved one, you
must certainly consider the level of nurse staffing. One helpful source
on this point is Medicare website: http://www.medicare.gov/NursingHomeCompare/About/Whatis/What-Is-NHC.aspx.
Hi Jeanette, thanks for the very nice post about home nursing staff. Will surely contact to you guys.
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