Contemporary Healthcare: Nursing Workloads and Patient Outcomes Essay

This essay, prepared for a NUR3606 assignment, delves into the multifaceted issue of nursing workloads in contemporary healthcare settings. It begins by defining nursing workloads, encompassing both patient-related and administrative tasks, and explores the factors contributing to increased demands, such as rising patient acuity and staffing shortages. The essay examines the impact of these workloads on nurses, including job satisfaction, burnout, and the performance of non-professional duties, while also acknowledging potential positive aspects like enhanced skills development. Furthermore, it analyzes the direct and indirect effects of nursing workloads on patient healthcare outcomes, such as patient satisfaction, medical errors, and the effectiveness of training programs. The analysis considers both the negative consequences of high workloads, like decreased patient safety, and the potential for nurses to become more dedicated to patient care under pressure. The essay concludes by summarizing the key findings and highlighting the importance of managing workloads to ensure both nurse well-being and optimal patient outcomes, referencing several academic sources to support its claims.

Nursing Workloads in
Contemporary Healthcare
and Patient Care

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Things involved in nursing workloads........................................................................................3
Impact of nursing workloads on nurses.......................................................................................3
Impact of nursing workloads on patient healthcare outcomes.....................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

Things involved in nursing workloads
In the profession of nursing, the nurse workload deals in the amount of performance
which is required in the specific job. The work of nursing involves both the work which is
completely related to the patient and the things which are completely related to the
administration or management (MacPhee, Dahinten and Havaei, 2017). The major reasons
behind the higher workloads for the nurses include the increasing demand of nurses, reducing the
staffing and increasing the overtime and reducing the patient length of stay. The nursing
workload can be on various different levels such as unit level, job level or situation level. The
unit level workload deals in the nurse patient ratio which can be used for comparing the units and
the outcomes of patient related to the nursing staffing. The work load at the job level relies on
the type of nursing job or speciality. This deals in the job of the nurses which they perform
(Hegney and et.al., 2019). This may be the case that the nurses working in the same ICU may
have different types of workloads. The workload at the patient level deals in the clinical
condition of the patient which means there are various factors which determine the workload
such as therapeutic intervention scoring system, ineffective communication, not well stocked
supplies and many more. The situation level workload depends on the situation which means the
design of health care micro-system which can include the poor physical environment of work,
family needs, not well stocked supplies and many more. The ineffective communication among
the team members also impacts this type of workload. Therefore, the workload of nurses can
include all these above mentioned type of workloads.
Impact of nursing workloads on nurses
The different nursing workloads impact the nurses in various ways. These affect the
nursing job satisfaction negatively which means it increases the turnover of the nurses and leads
to their shortage. The nurses also need to perform various non professional duties such as
retrieving and delivering food trays, transporting patients, housekeeping duties and many more.
The heavy nurse workloads also impact the burnout and job dissatisfaction which also leads to
the high turnover of employees. The workload at the unit level suggests that there needs to be
some improvement in the number of nurses but this also increases cost and the also nursing
shortage (Zhang and et.al., 2019). The increasing costs decrease the amount of money provided
to the nurses. The job level workload increases mental pressure on the nurses which impacts their
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health. This leads to greater stress and dissatisfaction. The workload at the patients’ level
decreases the motivation of the nurses because the patient outcomes are the main determinants
behind the nurses motivation. The nurses are also impacted by this as if they have ineffective
communication between each other than this can affect the patient outcomes which impact the
nurses’ motivation indirectly. The situation level workload impacts the nurses directly as if the
family members of same patient ask same questions again and again then this can increases the
workload of nurses as they need to repeat the same information again and again to every
member. Therefore, different types of workloads affect the nurses in different manner. This
affects the ways in which they deliver the care to the patients.
On the other, the nursing workload also impacts the nurses positively as they come to know
about the ways in which they can serve the patients in critical conditions as well. The nurses
become more competitive in nature and also this was observed that the nurses strive very hard to
meet up the workload challenges and also they are aware of the ways to deliver efficient and
effective care to the patients in the time of workload also. This helps in the career growth of the
nurses which can help them in solving the obstacles in the future also.
Impact of nursing workloads on patient healthcare outcomes
The nursing workloads impacts the nurses which directly or indirectly impact the patient
outcomes because when the nurses become stressed then they become unable to deliver the best
and efficient care to the patient. This leads to decreased patient satisfaction. The nursing staffing
levels can be linked to the patient outcomes. The nurses when burnout and stressed do not have
sense of belongingness towards the patient which is why the improvement in the patient
outcomes is very less (Qureshi and et.al., 2019). The nursing staffing levels also lead to failure to
rescue and the mortality rates. Workload is a complex construct which is considered to be more
complex than the nurse-patient measure ratio. This nursing workload can affect the patient safety
and quality of care. The nursing workload also leads to various medical errors because they are
not able to perform efficiently and also their physical and resources are reduced (Blay and et.al.,
2017). This is how; the suboptimal performance affects the patient care and the safety. The errors
can be mistakes or knowledge errors or it can be slips and lapses or the execution errors. When
the nurses have workloads regarding the time pressure then this can reduce the attention which is
devoted by nurse to safety critical tasks. This leads to unsafe patient care thereby leading to
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decreased patient outcomes. The workloads also lead to inefficient and less effective trainings to
the new nurses which are why they are also not able to deliver improved care to the patients.
On the contradiction, the workload of nurses also impacts the patient outcomes positively. This
was observed that when the nurses are stressed they strive hard to fight with their stress but this
time makes them more dedicated towards the patients which is why they feel that they need to
fight with every obstacle but expects the best outcomes in the health of the patient. The patient
also becomes active and knowledgeable in this case because they do not completely depend on
the nurses and try to sort out the things by their own. This makes them more educated regarding
their disease and they can also contribute in improving the health outcomes.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Blay, N. & et.al., (2017). Intrahospital transfers and the impact on nursing workload. Journal of
clinical nursing. 26(23-24). 4822-4829.
Hegney, D. & et.al., (2019). Perceptions of nursing workloads and contributing factors, and their
impact on implicit care rationing: A Queensland, Australia study. Journal of Nursing
Management. 27(2). 371-380.
MacPhee, M., Dahinten, V. S., & Havaei, F. (2017). The impact of heavy perceived nurse
workloads on patient and nurse outcomes. Administrative Sciences. 7(1). 7.
Qureshi, S. M. & et.al., (2019). Predicting the effect of nurse–patient ratio on nurse workload
and care quality using discrete event simulation. Journal of nursing management. 27(5).
971-980.
Zhang, S. & et.al., (2019). High nursing workload is a main associated factor of poor hand
hygiene adherence in Beijing, China: An observational study. International journal of
nursing practice. 25(2). e12720.
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