Posted: March 9th, 2016

What are the effects of lower staffing of Registered Nurse’s in nursing facilities?

Received committee feedback for SMART Form. Please read and edit document to answer the following (please edit in RED font; this will make it easier for me to review):

Committee Feedback: The RQs (in section 2.6) need some work and then specificity on how they will be answered throughout the document.

1. What is the ratio of nurses to patients?

Committee Feedback: Is this done across all areas of the hospital? If not, then it should be specified which areas will be evaluated.
I would also think that there should be a tie between the ratio and Joint Commission standards.

2. What are the effects of lower staffing of Registered Nurse’s in nursing facilities?

Committee Feedback: Is this research being conducted in a hospital or a nursing home? (need to be specific).
How is “lower staffing” defined? (need to be specific)
How are “effects” measured (i.e. correlation, etc.).

3. Is there an association between staffing of Registered nurses and patient outcomes?

Committee Feedback: Which patient outcomes are you referring to? (need to be specific)
How are you going to measure association?