How does staffing effect patient outcomes?

What are patient outcomes? 

Patient outcomes are the results from treatments patients have received in hospital. They are analysed in three key areas: maintenance of patient functional status, patient safety and patient satisfaction. Staff happiness is vital to having healthier patients. In order to achieve positive patient outcomes, strategies need to be in place to retain staff and maintain their wellbeing. 

Currently we are experiencing staff shortages in a lot of fields. The effects of stage shortages in healthcare can lead to: 

1. Long hours causing fatigue  
2. The fatigue increasing the likelihood of medical errors   
3. The medical errors cause negative patient outcomes  
4. Nurses experience burnout  
5. Nurses leave causing more work for nurses that are left there 
6. Then the cycle starts again 

Nurse staffing and patient outcomes 

The British Medical Journal identified that negative patient perceptions are caused the most by understaffing because it results in poorer care.  

With the healthcare industry moving towards person-centred care, the need for a good patient experience is crucial to maintain best practice. Not only does it present to a ward great clinical work, but it will also boost morale in the team. A great focus on creating an effective and supportive environment is vital in retaining staff to ensure both nurses and patients are satisfied.  

How do nurse staffing ratios impact patient outcomes? 

In general, hospitals with more favourable staffing levels consistently have better outcomes. Patients in hospitals with a high patient-to-nurse ratio had an increased mortality rate by 26%. The impact of a patient-to-nurse ratio on nurses is very significant. Morale and a work ethic of a team can change in an instant if they are stretched too far.  

The National Institute of Nursing stated that nurses who worked more than 10 hours a shift were 2.5 times more likely to burnout. Majority of the time, the extended shift or double shift is caused by a lack of staff or inefficient scheduling of staff. If shifts are fully staffed, tasks and seeing patients are spread out more widely. But if shifts are under-staffed, staff will be expected to care for more patients in the same length of time. The care and treatments for these patients are often rushed leading to weaker outcomes and exhausted staff.  

The repetitive nature of these issues on nurses makes the job more and more stressful and it continues the decrease in both patient and nurse satisfaction. Health Affairs showed that the percentage of patients saying they would definitely recommend a hospital decreased by 2% for every 10% of nurses that expressed dissatisfaction. Moving to using digital tools will eliminate these scheduling issues and the use of Electronic Patient Records can minimise time wasted on administrative tasks allowing more time to spend on treating patients.  

What impacts a nurse’s satisfaction – nursing burnout and patient outcomes 

Nursing burnout is an emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion caused by continuous stressors such as: long hours, high workload and bad interpersonal relationships.   

Nurse burnout impacts patients too. The complete exhaustion makes the likelihood of errors even higher. 21 out of 30 studies looking at burnout levels in nurses found that patient safety was the biggest thing to be impacted, caused mainly by medical errors.  

Not all mistakes impact patient safety instantly but can signal operational problems, which if left alone in time would negatively impact patient safety. Nurses’ burnout would reduce the likelihood of them reporting the issues to be fixed before patients were put at risk. The lack of awareness would further decrease the quality of care and patient outcomes adding to the nurses' stresses, and temptations to leave the profession.  

How to improve nurse and patient satisfaction  

The link between nurses’ satisfaction and their wellbeing creating great quality of care for patients is clear. 4 out 5 nurses think that staffing levels in hospitals are insufficient because other employers offer a better work-life balance. To stop patient outcomes decreasing further and maintain staff retention there are a variety of digital solutions you can use: 

Use Electronic Patient Records 

• It improves outcomes by providing a holistic picture of patients in your care  
• You can manage both administrative and clinical processes tailored to your organisation’s specific needs 
• Nurses have agreed that electronic patient records benefit all healthcare professionals to deliver safer and more effective care to patients they are involved with.   

Use Mobile solutions 

• Healthcare professionals can update records while with the individual, meaning they don’t have to type up notes in their own time at the end of the day 
• Records are more accurate 
• Eliminates risk of miss-filing or forgetting information  
• Healthcare professionals using mobile solutions have said that their wellbeing has improved, they have more time to go out on visits and can provide better care for individuals 

Use Digital Whiteboards  

• It reduces time spent on non-clinical and administrative tasks and more time spent with patients  
• At a glance, healthcare professionals can see the status of patients on wards to plan effectively, prevent staff being overworked, and reduce waiting times 
• Improves nurse-to-patient ratios – hospitals with 8-1 nurse-to-patient ratios left nurses more than twice as likely to suffer emotional exhaustion compared to ratios of 4-1 or less.

Using a combination of these methods will aid in decreasing nurse burnout and nurses leaving the profession, helping to continually improve patient outcomes. Discover the impact of digital whiteboards improving your day-to-day efficiency by reducing admin time whilst improving staffing and patient outcomes.