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Evidence-Based Staffing Enhances Patient-Centered Care

Rebecca Hendren, for HealthLeaders Media, August 2, 2011

On days with lower census or patient acuity needs, the hospital looks at other ways to deploy staff across the system or gives the opportunity of taking vacation time. Nurses understand such flexibility, as they are used to being called in when patient acuity needs or census numbers rise and units need extra help.

Evidence-based staffing is key to the hospital's desire to provide community-centered care.

"[It's] one tool that we use to establish and project what kind of staffing we need to have today and into the future," Loftin says. "It gives argument cognitively for the staff. But it also helps us hold each other and the staff accountable when we need to staff correctly."

Rebecca Hendren is a senior managing editor at HCPro, Inc. in Danvers, MA. She edits www.StrategiesForNurseManagers.com and manages The Leaders' Lounge blog for nurse managers. Email her at rhendren@hcpro.com.
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2 comments on "Evidence-Based Staffing Enhances Patient-Centered Care"


Lisa Sams (8/5/2011 at 3:48 PM)
Using defined indicators that are based on evidence certainly removes the variability that is seen when staffing is determined by each unit according to perception or inconsistent criteria. The article would have been more helpful if the evidence based indicators were listed and the citations for their support were included. Also knowing the size of the organization, scope of clinical care, and population demographics would help the reader interpret the story.

Katrina Howard (8/4/2011 at 9:38 PM)
Hmmm,I'm confused. Do patient needs not translate into nurses workload? Also, what outcomes were improved and how did you guage staff morale? I think there is more to this story.