UAHuntsville Nursing student makes national presentation for safe nurse/patient ratios (3/24/2008) | | |
 Nursing student Jenny Colvin helps teach first graders about hospital care during "Let's Pretend Hospital" in March. Dave Denton, (256)824-6414 | In the eyes of UAHuntsville nursing student Jenny Colvin of Geraldine, it's all about communication when it comes to individual patient care. So much so, that she and four of her College of Nursing classmates wrote a resolution for regulating nurse-to-patient ratios. Colvin will present the resolution at the annual convention of the National Student Nurses Association (NSNA) the week of March 24 in Grapevine, Texas. She's hoping a national consciousness and monitoring of nurse workloads will be adopted. "You'll have a 'med nurse' (RN or LPN to administer medications), a patient care assistant or unlicensed assistant personnel (to monitor vital signs) and an RN (registered nurse) caring for patients," Colvin said. "The RN has to make sure it's safe for each patient to have their medications, otherwise, they have to find the med nurse and halt one or more of them." This has to be done, as Colvin points out, while the RN is assessing patients every four hours. And as the number of patients per nurse increases, the tasks get more and more challenging. "California is the only state that has specific ratios for specific units," said Colvin. "We need to have each state mandate regulations according to their needs. Colvin, along with Miranda McMillen, Lisa Gilbreath, Hannah Dugan and Ashley Bishop wrote the resolution that Colvin will present in Texas. Included in the resolution are findings collected from peer-reviewed articles. Such findings include: deteriorated patient outcomes and an increase in length of hospital stay. For each additional patient assigned to an RN, there was a found increase of hospital-acquired pneumonia (7 percent), increase in failure to rescue (8 percent), an increase in pulmonary failure (53 percent), and an increase in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (16 percent). The NSNA is being asked to support legislation for better nurse/patient ratios, support and encourage research for its implementation, and to become public advocates for the cause. Colvin will graduate from UAHuntsville in May with a bachelor of science degree in nursing and will pursue a career as a trauma nurse.
| |