Nursing – Sensitive Indicators

The appreciation of NSIs (Nursing-Sensitive Indicators) aids nurses, especially in cases that are comparable to the current one, in making out matters that may compromise patient care. In the current case, Mr. J, who is a rabbi on retirement, has mild dementia. The NSIs defining the case include hospital-acquired infection, usage of restraints, and family-patient contentment with the offered nursing care. The patient becomes infected with pressure ulcers while at the hospital. Had the nurses caring for Mr. J had ample appreciation of the NSIs and identified them correctly, they would have effectively stemmed the occurrence of the case’s adverse outcomes. The outcomes included the acquisition of the ulcers by the patient and the unwarranted utilization of restraints.

Had the nurses caring for Mr. J had ample appreciation of the NSIs and identified them correctly, the patient’s family would have been contented with the care given to him. Notably, the family was dissatisfied with the care (Iseminger, Levitt & Kirk, 2009). That was clear from the reactions of the patient’s daughter. She complained to the physician in-charge of his father that he had not been given the ordered or proper kosher meals. Had the nurses caring for Mr. J had ample appreciation of the NSIs and identified them correctly, Mr. J would have been given the appropriate kosher meals in the whole of his hospital-stay. The nurses would have been sensitive to the actuality that nursing care directly influences particular patient outcomes as shown by Laschinger, Finegan and Wilk (2009).

The data that hospitals acquire or develop on particular NSIs, like pressure ulcers incidence and restraint prevalence, help them advance, or promote, quality client care across all their departments and units. The NSIs assist hospitals to have better appreciation of the care they afford their customers, patients. Over the years, the NSIs have been refined (Iseminger, Levitt & Kirk, 2009). Even then, they essentially measure patient contentment with overall care, provision of medical information, and pain management; pressure ulcers; nursing duration per patient; infections gotten in hospital settings; and nurse’s job contentment according to Laschinger, Finegan and Wilk (2009).

NSI data aids hospitals advance the care’s quality by demonstrating to them and drawing their attention to the links between nursing care’s quality and particular patient management outcomes. The data encourages hospitals to focus on the links and exploit them. Hospitals use the data to develop, as well as implement, specific practices based on extant evidence. Such practices clearly enhance patient outcomes (Iseminger, Levitt & Kirk, 2009). When the determination of the links demonstrates that there are deficits in particular nursing care areas; NSIs aid hospitals in justifying why they require more nursing staff numbers. NSI-related data sets are used by hospitals in the utilization of the extra staff by making out how, as well as where, they are required. When more staff members are deployed to the hospitals, NSIs aid the hospitals in showing that increased staff numbers enhance patient care’s quality according to Laschinger, Finegan and Wilk (2009).

NSI data assists hospitals develop effective nursing personnel mixes and staffing levels in given units. The mixes and levels have straightforward impacts on nurses’ job contentment. The data helps hospitals develop and improve their care methods, assessments, and interventions to enhance patient-related outcomes according to Laschinger, Finegan and Wilk (2009). For instance, the data informs hospitals’ decisions to develop and improve their care methods, assessments, and interventions to reduce the rate of acquisition of new infections within their environments and family discontentment with the offered nursing care (Iseminger, Levitt & Kirk, 2009).

NSI data assists hospitals enhance nursing care quality by affording them complete appreciation of the range of the nursing services, or care, they offer to patients. The data affords hospitals complete appreciation of the care processes used by their nurses and their possible improvements according to Laschinger, Finegan and Wilk (2009). For instance, using the data, hospitals understand how their nurses execute their everyday assignments and their job contentment. Hospitals understand the care structures offered by the nurses and how to enhance them (Iseminger, Levitt & Kirk, 2009). Notably, the structures are closely tied to the nurses’ certifications, experiences, skills as well as education. As well, hospitals understand the relevant patient-centered outcomes and how to enhance them. Hospitals use the data to monitor and improve their patients’ improvement rates. For instance, hospitals are informed by the data of the need to reduce the rate of infections acquired within their facilities by their patients according to Laschinger, Finegan and Wilk (2009).

Hospitals improve care quality by using NSI data to argue for the deployment of travel nurses to their facilities by relevant government authorities according to Laschinger, Finegan and Wilk (2009). The hospitals ask the authorities for nursing staff supplementations to address their particular staffing requirements via best-fit deployments of travel nurses. Notably, every travel nurse is a markedly qualified, certified, as well as licensed, nurse (Cayer, 1996). He or she travels to hospital facilities that require enhanced nursing staff levels. He or she helps the facilities enhance their staffing mixes, deal with enhanced patient volumes effectively, and afford given patients specialized care. Sufficient staffing assists in the maintenance of nursing workforces’ job contentment, adds to workforce productivity as well as adds to patient care quality (Iseminger, Levitt & Kirk, 2009).

Various system resources, colleagues or referrals are available to a nursing shift supervisor for use in resolving the ethical matter, or issue, characterized in Mr. J’s case. The supervisor should himself or herself deliver an apology to Mr. J and his family members. The supervisor can use her or his seniors to convey, or deliver, the apology. The supervisor can use the family members to convey, or deliver, the apology to Mr. J. The supervisor can use the hospital’s dietary workers to convey, or deliver, the apology to Mr. J (Patterson, Grenny, McMillan & Switzler, 2011).

To make certain that the matter does not recur in the hospital; the supervisor can persuade the hospital’s management to institute a panel in charge of food standards at the hospital (Cayer, 1996). The panel would be charged with setting up strong food standards that check on the recurrence of the error that characterized Mr. J’s meals at the hospital. As well, the panel would be charged with giving those responsible for preparing and delivering food to the patients within the hospital with the requisite guidelines, incentives, and means to prepare and deliver appropriate food to them (Patterson, Grenny, McMillan & Switzler, 2011). The panel should train the hospital’s dietary workers to act in ways that are ever thoughtful of patients’ wishes, especially with respect to their meals.

Scroll to Top