Importance of Nurse to Patient Ratio in Healthcare Settings

Running head: NURSE TO PATIENT RATIO
NURSE TO PATIENT RATIO
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NURSE TO PATIENT RATIO1
Patient safety and the safety practice is one of the most important of the aspect of the
healthcare practice. It is the responsibility of the nurse and the healthcare staff to provide
elevated value care to the patient. According to Cho et al. (2015), the nurse to patient proportion
in the healthcare setting should be 1:1 or 1:2, which is dependent on the stability of the patient.
However, in the Australia rendering to the Australian Institute of the Health and Welfare (2019),
the number of the enrolled nurse has been decreased by 0.8% in the year 2015 which leads to
reduction in the patient to nurse proportion in the healthcare setting.
According to the American Nurses Association (2019), the nurse to patient ratio, in the
emergency department should be 1:4 depending upon the condition of the patient, the nurse to
patient ratio in the acute care unit should be 1:2. However, the actual ratio of the nurse to patient
is less than that of the given statistics, which lead to poor health outcome of the patient,
increased mortality rate, augmented length of the stay in hospice, reduced the patient satisfaction
and hospital readmission. Reduction in nurse to patient ratio poses negative influence on the
health of the patient (Falk and Wallin 2016). Proper care of the patient is not done which lead to
poor health outcome as well as delays the recovery process of the patient. It also possesses
negative impact on the nurse, as their responsibility increases which lead to nurse fatigue and
medication errors (Liu et al. 2019).
To reduce the negative impact of nurse to patient ratio, it is significant to increase the
number of nursing staff in the health care setting which can be done by hiring more registered
and enrolled nurse in the healthcare standard and by preventing the nurse turnover in the hospital
setting (MacPhee, Dahinten and Havaei 2017). To balance the nurse to patient ratio in the health
care setting, more amounts of registered nurses are hired in the healthcare setting. Rendering to

NURSE TO PATIENT RATIO2
the Australian Institute of the Health and Welfare (2019), the number of registered nurse has
been increased by 11% from the year 2011 to 2015.
Reduction in the nurse to the patient ratio poses a harmful impact on the health of
patient as well as on the nurse. It can hamper the health of both the patient as they becomes
devoid of the proper care and the nurse as they have to work beyond their shift time and hence
does not get proper sleep which leads to reduced quality of the patient care and also leads to
medication error (Caruso et al. 2017). Balanced nurse to patient ratio is important for the patient
safety and also gives rise to healthy workplace (MacPhee, Dahinten and Havaei 2017). Patient
safety is termed as the appropriate care of the patient to improve the patient outcome. In the case
of satisfactory nurse to patient ratio, the healthcare staff will be able to distribute suitable
carefulness to the patient and also do not have to work beyond their shift which leads to reduced
medication error (Cho et al. 2016). When the nurses had to work beyond their shift, they get
fatigued and lead to leave the organization, therefore to maintain a healthy workplace, the ratio
of the nurse to the patient is maintained so that they can work in their pace and do not have to
leave the healthcare organization.
Leadership in the nursing is necessary to incorporate learning in to the nursing students
(Cherry and Jacob 2016). The major reason that has been evaluated behind the reduced nurse to
patient ratio is the nurse turnover because of the absence of clinical knowledge among the nurse
or due to nurse fatigue. It is observed that, because of the lack of proper clinical knowledge
among the nursing students, they are either not hired by the healthcare organization or leave the
organization by himself due to the burden. It possesses extra work pressure on other nurses and
they tend to leave the job (Jarrar et al. 2019). One of the other important reasons that contribute
to the decreased nurse to patient ratio is the low wage offer. In many healthcare organizations, it