Staffing: Hot Topic as Usual for Nurses

Karen Roush, MS, RN, FNP-C, clinical managing editor

Our recent Facebook post on an article on nurse staffing at the NPR Shots blog (“Need a Nurse? You May Have to Wait”) got a lot of responses. Staffing is a hot topic for nurses—from both a personal  and a patient care perspective. And I say “hot” because it never fails to raise emotions.

Everyone agrees that adequate nurse staffing is essential for safe, high quality patient care and nursing job satisfaction. Research has shown that it significantly improves patient outcomes.

Yet we—nurses, as well as the larger health care community—continue to debate how to determine what “adequate staffing” is and how to best achieve it. Acuity-of-care measures? Unit-by-unit mandated staffing plans? State-mandated staffing ratios? What do you think?

We’ve published numerous articles and news pieces on this topic in recent years; here are a few examples:

News, reports, and analysis (open access articles)

“Nurse Staffing Matters—Again”

“California Mandated Nurse–Patient Ratios Deemed Successful”

“Nursing Shortage—or Not”

Feature. Requires subsciption or purchase; abstract only

“Nurse Staffing and Patient, Nurse, and Financial Outcomes”

And here are some blog posts that deal either directly or indirectly with issues related to nurse staffing.

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2016-11-21T13:10:00-05:00May 31st, 2012|nursing perspective|1 Comment
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Critical Care 2012: An Educational Extravaganza

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

So, for the 12th or 13th time (I’ve lost count), I attended the National Teaching Institute of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (the “other” AACN organization, not to be confused with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing) in Orlando last week. And as usual it was impressive—approximately 6,000 attendees, and rows and rows of exhibitors. There were two helicopters, a bus, and an ambulance in the exhibit hall, as well as two-story booths and classrooms. While there were some recruiters looking for staff, they were overshadowed by monitoring companies, bed and equipment manufacturers, and pharmaceutical companies.

Some highlights:

Left to right: Outgoing AACN president Mary Stahl and incoming president for 2013, Kathryn Roberts.

Kudos to the AACN for its creativity in making general sessions lively and interesting. This year, the organization held open auditions for a member to assist as “MC” for the general sessions (or “super sessions”). It was a tie, and attendees were treated to two of their own in action, hamming it up and enjoying the spotlight.

The “TED-talk” presentation style used by both AACN president  Mary Stahl and president-elect Kathryn Roberts was refreshing—and unique for nursing meetings.

I interviewed both presidents—click the link to listen to the podcast (it may take a minute to load). The 2013 president, Kathryn Roberts, MSN, RN, CNS, CCRN, […]

2018-03-28T10:38:10-04:00May 29th, 2012|nursing perspective, nursing research|0 Comments
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Memorial Day, 2012

This Memorial Day, we here at AJN would like to pay tribute to those nurses who gave their lives in defense of their country. And to all the nurses who care for the casualties of war with dedication, skill, and compassion, often at great risk to their own safety – we honor and thank them.

2016-11-21T13:10:02-05:00May 25th, 2012|Nursing|0 Comments
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Gym Class, or Physical Education?

Photo by Krossbow, via Flickr

By Michael Fergenson, AJN senior editorial coordinator

Gym class. Some of us may have memories of a brusque man tossing a ball into the middle of the gym, telling us to play and occasionally blowing a whistle. Popular culture certainly portrays the “gym teacher” in this way—or worse, sometimes they’re cast as the villain. I put gym teacher in quotes in the last sentence because my dad would get angry with me if he heard that term, or “gym class” for that matter. My father considers himself a physical educator. When people call him a gym teacher, which is most of the time, he replies with the quip: “The gymnasium is the room that I teach in, but I am a physical education teacher.”

There’s something more important going on here than mere semantics. Is this pop cultural view of the gym teacher causing harm to students? I believe so.

My father has been a physical educator for a little more than 20 years. For a long time I had the same negative view of gym teachers as most people. That was until I began to study education myself. I definitely wasn’t going to be a gym teacher—oh no, it was literature for me. I would be a high school English teacher, but […]

2016-11-21T13:10:03-05:00May 23rd, 2012|Nursing, personal health practices|3 Comments
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Big Changes for New York Nurses

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

On Thursday, May 17, the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) held a special members-only meeting at New York City’s Jacob Javits Center to vote on bylaw changes that will drastically alter the future of the organization, morphing it from a professional association into a union. One of the key changes had to do with who could hold office in the organization: going forward, only bedside nurses, retirees, and “non-statutory” supervisors (i.e., those not able to hire or fire employees) would be eligible for office.

Other changes include eliminating the position of CEO and changing it to that of executive director, in order “to better reflect the union’s democratic roots and greater accountability to working nurses,” and a decision to push for nurse–patient staffing ratio legislation in the next session.

The NYSNA, which with 37,000 members, was founded in 1901 and is the oldest state nursing association in the country. Until January, when it was suspended for one year, it was the largest constituent member association of the ANA.

According to ANA documents, the NYSNA violated ANA bylaws by engaging in “dual unionism” when its newly elected board of directors replaced the CEO with Julie Pinkham, who is also the executive director of the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA). The MNA had disaffiliated from ANA in the past, along with the California Nurses Association, and were founding members of National Nurses United. The ANA […]

2016-11-21T13:10:04-05:00May 21st, 2012|career|0 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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