One major issue in nursing practice is the use of safe staffing levels. The number of staff on any shift must be enough to cover all the most likely scenarios and to ensure that all patients have the right level of care and attention. In a study of nine European countries, Aiken et al. (2014) found that an increase in a nurses’ workload by just one patient increased the likelihood of any inpatient dying within 30 days by 7%. Harrington et al. (2012) found similar effects in nursing homes, with an increase in patient workload having a significant effect on mortality. Recio-Saucedo et al. (2015) found that insufficient nursing staff levels led to an increase in the number of patients leaving the emergency room without being seen, meaning that their problems could increase in severity at home. Ball et al. (2013) found that insufficient nursing staff levels led to work being left unfinished. This research also found that insufficient staffing was one of the main reasons for negative perceptions in the quality of care in hospitals.
Information technology in healthcare allows research, such as that explored above, to be found and analyzed quickly. Nurses can access current research online within minutes, and use this to create evidence-based practice that is beneficial to both the nurses themselves and to their patients. Without the internet, it would be much more difficult to collate information about issues in nursing into a usable model that can improve practice. In this case, health information technology has allowed current research on nursing staff levels, and the effects that it has on the nursing profession, to be gathered easily and quickly. It provides a basis for insight into nurse staffing issues in a wide variety of different contexts and the effects that it has on patient care.
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"Using Health Information Technology as a Source of Evidence-Based Practice".
- Aiken, L. H., Sloane, D. M., Bruyneel, L., Van den Heede, K., Griffiths, P., Busse, R., … Sermeus, W. (2014). Nurse staffing and education and hospital mortality in nine European countries: a retrospective observational study. The Lancet, 383(9931), 1824–1830. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)62631-8
- Ball, J. E., Murrells, T., Rafferty, A. M., Morrow, E., & Griffiths, P. (2013). “Care left undone”during nursing shifts: associations with workload and perceived quality of care. BMJ Quality & Safety, bmjqs–2012.
- Harrington, C., Choiniere, J., Goldmann, M., Jacobsen, F. F., Lloyd, L., McGregor, M., … Szebehely, M. (2012). Nursing Home Staffing Standards and Staffing Levels in Six Countries. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 44(1), 88–98. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1547-5069.2011.01430.x
- Recio-Saucedo, A., Pope, C., Dall’Ora, C., Griffiths, P., Jones, J., Crouch, R., & Drennan, J. (2015). Safe staffing for nursing in emergency departments: evidence review. Emergency Medicine Journal, 32(11), 888–894. https://doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2015-204936
