University of Technology Sydney: Nursing Leadership Patient Safety

This presentation, developed for a Nursing Leadership course at the University of Technology Sydney, addresses the critical issue of patient safety within the context of a healthy workplace. It highlights the impact of understaffing on nurses and patients, citing studies that link understaffing to reduced healthcare quality, nurse safety, and job satisfaction. The presentation explores how effective leadership can mitigate these challenges by transforming work environments and ensuring adequate staffing, including the role of graduate nurses in addressing shortages. The presentation also underscores the association between understaffing, patient safety, and workplace health, emphasizing the reciprocal relationship between effective leadership and quality healthcare services. The presentation references several studies to support its arguments, discussing the consequences of understaffing, such as increased workload, errors, and decreased collaboration, as well as strategies for improvement.

Nursing Leadership 1
Nursing Leadership
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Nursing Leadership 2
Criteria 1
Understaff nurses
Criteria 2
Understaffing of nurses is a major issue that affects both the nurses and patients. Studies have
found out that there exists an association between understaffing of nurses, quality healthcare of
patients (Mosadeghrad 2014) and nurse safety and job satisfaction (Gulavani & Shinde 2014).
Understaffing of nurses is a critical issue because it affects patient safety and increases
healthcare cost (Martin 2015).
Understaff nurses increase workload and as a result, nurses do not have sufficient time to
undertake tasks that directly affect patient safety. A heavy workload reduces collaboration and
communication with nurses, thus affecting their safety. Additionally, understaff nurses have a
heavy workload with results to job dissatisfaction, low morale and poor performance at work.
This is likely to threaten patient care and safety. Understaff nurses are also likely to make slips
and lapses errors (Lartey, Cummings, & Profetto‐McGrath 2014).
The problem of understaffing nurses can be resolved through effective leadership. This is
because it is the leadership that makes decisions and therefore they can decide to address
understaff nurses by increasing the number of employees or engaging additional nurses during
peak. Effective leadership can also address understaff nurses by transforming the work
environment to be friendly and help reduce the stress levels of overking nurses (Dawson et al.
2014, Roberts-Turner et al. 2014).

Nursing Leadership 3
Criteria 3
Understaff nurses are associated with graduate nursing because it shows the actual demand for
nurses, and therefore prepares the new graduate for the work. The heavy workload of nurses is a
major issue for the Australian healthcare system. Understaffing of nurses is caused by the high
demand for nurses, the decline in staffing and increased overtime and an inadequate supply of
nurses (Wang 2016). Graduate nurses play a significant role in understaffing nurses because they
reduce the existing nurse shortage. Moreover, graduate nurses share the responsibilities of the
existing nurses and thus reduce the heavy workload due to understaffing nurses.
Criteria 4
Studies have found out that there exists an association between understaff nurses, patient safety
(Hall et al. 2014) and nurse safety and job satisfaction (MacLean et al. 2014). Understaffing of
nurses is a critical issue because it affects patient safety and hence mortality. The objective of
this paper is to underscore the significant association between understaffing of nurses, patient
safety and a healthy workplace. Addressing the problem of understaffing nurses affects effective
leadership because it determines the quality of healthcare services offered to patients. On the
other hand, effective leadership is majorly determined by the quality of healthcare. Thus, the
improvement of quality healthcare affects effective leadership and vice versa.

Nursing Leadership 4
References
Ball, K., Doyle, D. & Oocumma, N.I., 2015, Nursing shortages in the OR: solutions for new
models of education. AORN journal, 101(1), pp.115-136.
Dawson, A.J., Stasa, H., Roche, M.A., Homer, C.S. & Duffield, C., 2014, Nursing churn and
turnover in Australian hospitals: nurses perceptions and suggestions for supportive
strategies. BMC nursing, 13(1), p.11.
Gulavani, A. & Shinde, M., 2014, Occupational stress and job satisfaction among
nurses. International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), 3(4), pp.733-740.
Hall, L.H., Johnson, J., Watt, I., Tsipa, A. & O’Connor, D.B., 2016, Healthcare staff wellbeing,
burnout, and patient safety: a systematic review. PloS one, 11(7), p.e0159015.
Lartey, S., Cummings, G. & Profetto‐McGrath 2014 Interventions that promote retention of
experienced registered nurses in health care settings: a systematic review. Journal of
Nursing Management, 22(8), pp.1027-1041.
MacLean, L., Hassmiller, S., Shaffer, F., Rohrbaugh, K., Collier, T. & Fairman, J., 2014. Scale,
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health, 35, pp.443-457.
Martin, C.J., 2015, The effects of nurse staffing on quality of care. MedSurg Nursing, 24(2),
pp.S4-S4.
Mosadeghrad, A.M., 2014, Factors influencing healthcare service quality. International journal

Nursing Leadership 5
of health policy and management, 3(2), p.77.
Roberts-Turner, R., Hinds, P.S., Nelson, J., Pryor, J., Robinson, N.C. & Wang, J., 2014. Effects
of Leadership Characteristics on Pediatric Registered Nurses’ Job Satisfaction. Pediatric
nursing, 40(5).
Wang, C.C., 2016, Closing the gap in nursing education: Comparing nursing registration systems
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