OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY
Colloge of Nursing
Valenzuela Campus
120 Mcarthur Highway, Marulas Valenzuela City
EVIDENCE- BASED
NURSING PRACTICE
LIBRARY WORKS
PRELIM
Submitted by:
KC Chan, SN.
Submitted to:
Potenciana A. Maroma, PhD,RN
A. JOURNAL ABOUT LUNG DISEASE
The effects of staffing practices on safety and equality of perioperative
nursing care
PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOPHYSIOLOGY OF DISEASE THE EFFECTS OF STAFFING
PRACTICES ON SAFETY AND QUALITY OF PERIOPERATIVE NURSING CARE
Authors:
Nijkamp, Nick and Foran, Paula (2021) "The effects of staffing practices on safety and
quality of
perioperative nursing care – an integrative review," Journal of Perioperative Nursing:
The provision of safe, quality patient care is central to all health care
professionals, including nurses. Nursing care is seen to exemplary levels
within the perioperative nursing field; the vulnerability of patients as well as
the complex and invasive procedures undertaken make the perioperative
nurse a powerful patient advocate. Advocacy for safety and quality care is
integral to perioperative nursing. However, the effects of staffing, staff
training and rostering practices can greatly affect the safety of patients2–5 .
This integrative review describes some of the effects of these staffing
practices in relation to patient safety withinthe perioperative nursing field.
This review found significant literature surrounding nurse satisfaction in
relation to staffing, rostering practices and training. However, there is a lack
of contemporary Australian literature related to these practices and patient
safety. This literature review focused specifically on fatigue, staff training and
nurse-to-patient ratios in relation to patient safety within perioperative
nursing. Each of these components, if managed appropriately, can significantly
improve the quality and safety of patient care.
Fatigue is a rapidly growing staffing issue in perioperative nursing. The
perioperative period. The environment is tiring for a variety of reasons,
including physical, emotional, and cognitive fatigue demands; prolonged
standing; limited breaks; rostering practices; on-call shifts; wearing of heavy
lead aprons and manual handling. High levels of exhaustion may also cause
practitioners to develop compassion. Compassion fatigue is a concern because
it can cause nurses to avoid patient interactions as well as provide low-quality
services
A multitude of factors exist that effect patient safety and quality of care within
perioperative nursing. The perioperative field offers unique hazards and
complexities which place patients at risk of suffering an adverse outcome
during their admission. In the 2018–2019 report, the Australian Institute of
Health and Welfare reported 2.6 health care associated complications per 100
admissions across Australian public hospital facilities. Undeniably there is a
direct link between perioperative staffing and safe surgical care of
perioperative patients. ACORN has provided specific guidelines for
perioperative nursing practice since 1977 when the first ACORN standards
were developed12; however, ACORN’s contemporary standards allow for a
more dynamic staffing process to take place8. This process allows for
assessment of patient acuity, turnaround times, procedure complexity and
appropriate staffing to be implemented to provide safe and quality patient
care. Discrepancies occur when budgetary factors override these staffing
standards and jeopardise patient safety. The current ACORN Standards views
nursing staff as valuable assets in perioperative care, and therefore cost-
saving initiatives should not jeopardise safe staffing. A review of the available
literature uncovered three common staffing themes that effect patient safety
and the quality of care, these were; fatigue, nurse-to-patient ratios, and staff
training1,3,4,6,8–25. The findings of this review in relation to these three
themes will be examined, limitations will be noted and recommendations
made for practice and future research. Fatigue Fatigue is a rapidly growing
staffing concern that surrounds perioperative nursing. The perioperative
environment is fatiguing for a multitude of reasons, including physical,
emotional and cognitive demands; prolonged standing; limited breaks;
rostering practices; on-call shifts; wearing of heavy lead aprons and manual
handling. High levels of fatigue may also lead to practitioners developing
compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue is a concern as it can cause nurses to
avoid interactions with patients, and provide services that are of low quality
acorn.org.au
Journal of Perioperative Nursing Volume 34 Number 1 Autumn 2021
