Nurse Education Affects Care Quality & Patient Outcomes - Essay Sample

Introduction

A lot of evidence has shown that nurse work affects the care quality and hospitals. There are uncertainties of interconnection between schooling composition of registered nurses in hospitals and patients' outcomes. The main idea of the article is to prove whether the number of registered nurses in hospitals, taught at the baccalaureate level, is related to adjusted risk mortality and rescue failure. There are outcome measures outlined in the article; Adjusted risk mortality of patients and rescue failure in 30 admission days related to the level of education of the nurse(s).

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Summary

Nurse Understaffing rated by doctors and the community as one of the main obstacles in the safety of patients. A study carried out in some hospitals showed that each added patient increased the burden of registered nurses (Harrison et al., 2019). As the workload of registered nurses increased, death risks also increased. These facts are disheartening as a shortage of nurses all over the world continues to grow. Consequently, concerns about enrolling new nurses to replace the retiring ones have increased. These discoveries of understaffing of nurses have also raised questions on whether traits of registered nurses in hospitals are vital in getting perfect outcomes of patients.

Nurses are part of the surveillance team for initial observation of constraints and complications in care. Moreover, nurses are always in the right position to take actions that curb adverse patient outcomes. The act of objective discernment by nurses and adequate staffing is crucial to successful observation. In saying so, the connection between a mix of higher nursing and positive outcomes of patients is explained. Most registered nurses in America get their primary schooling in various programs (Liu et al., 2020). Some of the programs are a three-year diploma in hospitals, an associate nursing degree, and baccalaureate nursing in universities. In the mid-20th century, 92 percent of new registered nurses were able to graduate in programs of hospital diplomas.

In contrast, at the beginning of the 21st century, a tiny percentage graduated in the same field. Amazingly, there is limited knowledge about any benefits of the increased number of nurses with undergraduate degrees. The overall knowledge is that the experience of nurses is useful rather than their levels of education. Even as the programs of education preparing registered nurses become diverse, there is little or nothing known about the effect of training and outcomes of patients. According to some studies, nurses prepared in baccalaureate education are going to portray professional ethics. These ethics are critical to the safety of patients (Harrison et al., 2019). Few types of research have, however, analyzed the impact of more education of nurses on patient results.

According to a study carried out in the article, evidence has revealed that hospitals' enrollment of nurses with higher levels of education is related to better patient results. Surgical patients who were under the care of many highly educated nurses successfully survived. On the contrary, the patients are taken care of in hospitals with less trained nurses. Correspondingly, patients with more severe problems were likely to survive under the supervision of many nurses with higher degrees. Registered nurses with hospital diplomas and those with higher degrees were studied separately. After the examination, the level of education was not an issue in patient results. Moreover, the average number of years of experience did not change the relationship between the education background and the outcomes of patients. These facts indicate that the standard knowledge that the experience of nurses is more crucial than their level of education may be false.

Studies reveal that nurse officials in university lecturing hospitals favour nurse personnel, with about 70 per cent taught at the degree level. Also, research estimates that currently, only 51 percent show at the baccalaureate level. Besides, nurse officials in community hospitals like 55 per cent of their registered nurses having higher degrees. There is currently no information to approximate the number of hospitals in America, with fifty per cent or higher of its registered nurses having higher degrees. In the sample carried out in the article, only a small percentage was able to surpass the standard of the rate of highly qualified registered nurses (Liu et al., 2020). It is more likely that there are variations in the liking of hospital officials present patterns of staffing. In America, forty-three per cent of nurses in hospitals had undergone baccalaureate education by 2002. Beating the target of preparing nurses using baccalaureate education needs re-energized support to motivate nurses to chase more levels of education.

Opinion on the Topic

In the present inadequacy of nurses, just like the foregone ones, discussions have been focused on how to elevate the providence of registered nurses. Nevertheless, there is less focus on examining where expenditure in government's funds will best benefit the public interest. Reports of nursing policy over the previous decade inferred that America has failed to balance the preparation of nurses with less registered nurses with baccalaureate education. The loss of balance concluded to be causing harm to patients.

Implications

Improved outcomes of patients with highly educated nurses bring out the importance of much emphasizing the planning of policies by nurse personnel. Government financing of nursing preparation should focus on moulding personnel who are ready and prepared to cater to the needs of a population. The efforts of employers to employ and maintain highly educated nurses may result in increased positive changes in care quality. Besides, attempts by employers to invest in higher learning of nurses may lead to considerable developments in the standard of care.

References

Harrison, J. M., Aiken, L. H., Sloane, D. M., Brooks Carthon, J. M., Merchant, R. M., Berg, R. A., et al. (2019). In Hospitals With More Nurses Who Have Baccalaureate Degrees, Better Outcomes For Patients After Cardiac Arrest. Health Affairs, 38(7). https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2018.05064

Liu, X., Zheng, J., Liu, K., Baggs, J. G., Liu, J., Wu, Y., & You, L. (2020). Associations of nurse education level and nurse staffing with patient experiences of hospital care: A cross-sectional study in China. Research in Nursing & Health, 43(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/nur.22003