Overworked Hospital Staff Versus Patient Safety - Essay Example

What has changed is that there are tremendous cases of clinical failures that put patients' life at risk. But what could be the cause of this problem One major cause is due to overworked medical staffs. The quality of service for patients is the major importance in the he alth care industry. It is important to consider how working conditions affect medical staffs and the result is risks of errors. How work hours and work staffing affect the quality of care It is believed that overworked staff is the leading cause of medical errors in hospitals, while most staffs worked from eight to 12- hour shifts, some work for longer hours.

According to an article of AMA "Hospital mistakes which sometimes end in death are the result of overworked medical staff. It was important to support the medical and nursing staffs who are striving for excellence and quality." Even an experienced health care staff may face significant effects on the safety and quality of care they provide to patients. Including also the effect of factors such as fatigue, shift work, and sleep deprivation. "The quality of patient care may be affected by a failure of will wherein the provider knows what care should be provided, but the will to provide care is hampered by fatigue and sleep deprivation.

" (Robins, 1995). . "The likelihood of making an error increased with longer work hours and was three times higher when nurses worked shifts lasting 12.5 hours or more." (Hobson, 2004). The average working hours for a week has an average of no more than 80 hours. But according to a 1998 survey in New York State demonstrated that staffs performed 85 hours a week to more than 95 hours. Possible error cases were observed during these long working hours. For instance, due to overwork of medical staffs they experienced fatigue and sleep deprivation during their duties, cases of giving wrong medication and improper attention to patients are commonly published.

That caused a patient from Lucena turned to coma and after a week died. Not giving enough attention to patients and staffs could lead of improper safety and could possibly risk each others lives. Some hospitals admit that they are understaffed that cause them to force to extend hours working. Low medical staffs can also affect the quality of service they produce. In addition to Hobson, "The widespread nursing shortage makes it difficult to avoid hospitals with overworked nursing staffs.

And it isn't too reassuring that more than half the errors involved medication administration. However, there is growing awareness of the problem. The Institute of Medicine recently recommended that voluntary overtime be limited." The shortage of nurses became graver in significance at a time when the need for the development of new plans for utilization and new content of instruction was so apparent. According to Wiebe, "California struggles from medical staffs' shortage. Many parts of the country complain that hospitals are