Militant Medical Nurse: Doom Doom Doom. Not. Doom Doom Doom. Not.

I am not going to blog about this. Okay, except for this little post.

I may start to care if the unlikely scenario of swine flu turning into a pandemic along the lines of "I am Legend" "The Stand" or "8 Days Later" occurs and sparks my interest. Otherwise I don't really give a toss. All good films by the way.

Life could get pretty interesting if they start forcing us into quarantine at gunpoint.

My Zombie Plan is ready for action. I might get a valid reason to shoot a hospital manager 50 times and then cut his head off when he keeps coming after me! You do know that I am kidding right?

You have seen Shawn of the Dead right?

The american government seems to have a little too much planned about how to deal with all this, especially considering that it started on one of their pig farms in mexico. I am always open to the possibility that they just know more than they are saying. If you really want to have a laugh read some of the comments below that article from armed yanks. And I guess Swine flu is easily classified as a novel virus.

Since it is such a novel (new) virus, there is no real "herd immunity" so the rate of infection could be very high. Just a thought.

But in the meantime I am just going to assume that this will go the same way as SARS,anthrax and everything else that the media tries to scare us shitless over. What the heck happened with SARS anyway?

Why has Nursing Care Deteriorated

Good nurses are failing every day to provide their patients with a decent standard of care. You want to know what has happened? Read this book and understand that similiar things have happened in the UK. Similiar causes, similiar consequences. And remember this. The failings in care have nothing to do with educated nurses or nurses who don't care. We need more well educated nurses on the wards rather than intentional short staffing by management.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nursing-Against-Odds-Stereotypes-Undermine/dp/080147292X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263123140&sr=8-1

Quotes of Interest. Education of Nurses.

Hospitals with higher proportions of baccalaureate-prepared nurses tended to have lower 30-day mortality rates. Our findings indicated that a 10% increase in the proportion of baccalaureate prepared nurses was associated with 9 fewer deaths for every 1,000 discharged patients."...Journal of advanced nursing 2007

THIS MEANS WE NEED WELL EDUCATED NURSES AT THE BEDSIDE NOT IN ADVANCED ROLES

Dr. Linda Aiken and her colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania identified a clear link between higher levels of nursing education and better patient outcomes. This extensive study found that surgical patients have a "substantial survival advantage" if treated in hospitals with higher proportions of nurses educated at the baccalaureate or higher degree level.

THIS MEANS WE NEED WELL EDUCATED NURSES AT THE BEDSIDE NOT IN ADVANCED ROLES

Dr. Linda Aiken and her colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research found that patients experienced significantly lower mortality and failure to rescue rates in hospitals where more highly educated nurses are providing direct patient care.

Evidence shows that nursing education level is a factor in patient safety and quality of care. As cited in the report When Care Becomes a Burden released by the Milbank Memorial Fund in 2001, two separate studies conducted in 1996 - one by the state of New York and one by the state of Texas - clearly show that significantly higher levels of medication errors and procedural violations are committed by nurses prepared at the associate degree and diploma levels as compared with the baccalaureate level.

Registered Nurse Staffing Ratios

International Council of Nurses Fact Sheet:

In a given unit the optimal workload for a registered nurse was four patients. Increasing the workload to 6 resulted in patients being 14% more likely to die within 30 days of admission.

A workload of 8 patients versus 4 was associated with a 31% increase in mortality. (In the NHS RN's each have anywhere from 10-35 patients per RN. It doesn't need to be this way..Anne)

Higher registered nurse staffing levels resulted in reduced numbers of urinary tract infections, pneumonia, upper gastrointestinal bleeding and shock in medical patients and lower rates of "failure to rescue" and urinary tract infections in major surgery patients.

Thirteen separate studies on nursing care in the late 1980s and early 1990s analyzed by Patricia Prescott,
RN, Ph.D. in late 1993 documented a direct correlation between safe staffing levels and lower mortality
rates and other related patient outcomes.......

Registered Nurses in NHS hospitals usually have between 10 and 30+ patients each on general wards.

Earlier in the year, the New England Journal of Medicine published results from another study of similar genre reported by a different group of nurse researchers. In that paper, Needleman et al3 examined whether different levels of nurse staffing are related to a patient’s risk of developing complications or of dying. Data from more than 5 million medical patient discharges and more than 1.1 million surgical patient discharges from 799 hospitals in 11 different states revealed that patients receiving more care from RNs (compared to licensed practical nurses and nurses’ aides) and those receiving the most hours of care per day from RNs experienced fewer complications and lower mortality rates than those who received more of their care from licensed practical nurses and/or aides. Specifically for medical patients, those who received more hours per day of care from an RN and/or those who had a greater proportions of their care provided by RNs experienced statistically significant shorter length of stay and lower complication rates (urinary tract infections, gastrointestinal bleeding, pneumonia, cardiac arrest, or shock), as well as fewer deaths from these and other (sepsis, deep vein thrombosis) complications

RN's spend less time on the basics these days. Why?

They can't help it.

Patients today have much higher acuity, yet the skill levels of staff have declined as hospitals insist on replacing trained nurses with unlicensed assistive personnel. The registered nurse still is responsible for everything. He just covers a much larger, and sicker group of patients than his colleagues of yesteryear.

•Lower levels of hospital registered nurse staffing are associated with more adverse outcomes such as Pneumonia, pressure sores and death.
•Patients have higher acuity, yet the skill levels of the nursing staff have declined as hospitals replace RN's with untrained carers.
•Higher acuity patients and the added responsibilities that come with them increase the registered nurse workload.
•Avoidable adverse outcomes such as pneumonia can raise treatment costs by up to $28,000.
•Hiring more RNs does not decrease profits. (Hospital bosses don't understand this. They think that they will save money by shedding real nurses in favour of carers and assistants. The damage done to the patients as a result of this costs more moneyi.e expensive deaths, complications,and lawsuits, and complaints....Anne)

Disclaimer

I know I swear too much. I am truly very sorry if you are offended. Please do not visit my blog if foul language upsets you. I want to help people. That is why I started this blog and that is why I became a Nurse. I won't run away from Nursing just yet. I want to stick around and make things better. I don't want the nurses caring for me when I am sick working in the same conditions that I am.

Of course this is all just a figmant of my imagination anyway and I am not even in this reality. Or am I?

Any opinions expressed in my posts are mine and mine alone and do not represent the viewpoint of the NHS, the RCN, God, or anyone else.

Patient confidentiality will not be breached in this blog.

Militant Medical Nurse

Friday, 1 May 2009

Doom Doom Doom. Not. Doom Doom Doom. Not.

4 comments:

Why has Nursing Care Deteriorated

About Me

My Favourite Posts

Quotes of Interest. Education of Nurses.

Registered Nurse Staffing Ratios

RN's spend less time on the basics these days. Why?

Contact Me

Followers

Very Cool Blogs:

Blog Archive

Disclaimer

Are YOU CRYING?

!

Militant Medical Nurse

Friday, 1 May 2009

Doom Doom Doom. Not. Doom Doom Doom. Not.

4 comments:

Why has Nursing Care Deteriorated

About Me

My Favourite Posts

Quotes of Interest. Education of Nurses.

Registered Nurse Staffing Ratios

RN's spend less time on the basics these days. Why?

Contact Me

Subscribe To

Followers

Very Cool Blogs:

Blog Archive

Disclaimer

Are YOU CRYING?

!