Nurses Admit To Problems At Nursing Homes
According to American Nurses Association, most of the 10,000 nurses participating in a recent poll believe the quality of nursing care has declined in the past year. Other poll results are just as alarming. A similar percentage (48.3%) of the nurses polled admit that they would not feel confident in having a person close to them receive care at the facility they work at.
The nurses recognize under-staffing as a major problem. Almost three-quarters of the respondents believe there to be an insufficient number of nurses in their unit. It appears the widespread under-staffing is forcing the nurses to look for work at better staffed facilities. 51.9% of the nurses are considering leaving their current positions due to inadequate staffing.
Under-staffing and high employee turnover at nursing homes leads to dangerous conditions for residents. Most of the situations involving: pressure sores, malnutrition, dehydration, medication errors and inadequate supervision stem from an overall staffing problem.
The complete poll results are here.
Comments (2)
Read through and enter the discussion by using the form at the endJenean Erickson - October 12, 2009 11:21 AM
How dare you add to the serious level of family guilt by stating "Most" dangerous situations leading to comorbid complications in nursing homes result from "an overall staffing problem"? If that were true, society should promptly dramatically increase medicaid funding targeting the money to be spent on staff for all medicaid high risk residents. Or is that the high end medical costs Obama now wants to cut?
Jonathan Rosenfeld - October 12, 2009 2:39 PM
I think you're spot on with respect to increasing Medicaid funding for staffing. The fact that nurses-- the people on the front lines of providing care-- acknowledge this as a major factor that can contribute to medical complications is very important to keep in mind.
I did not mean to say that the families should be responsible for poor care.