Nursing research - Annotated Bibliography Example

Staffing Patterns of Scheduled Unit Staff Nurses vs. Float Pool Nurses: A Pilot Study Larson, N., Sendelbach, S., Missal, B., Fliss, J., & Gaillard, P. (2012). Staffing Patterns of Scheduled Unit Staff Nurses vs. Float Pool Nurses: A Pilot Study. Medsurg Nursing Journal, 21(1), 27-39.In their research, Nicole Larsona, a patient care supervisor at St. Francis Regional Medical Center; Sue Sendelbach, a clinical nurse researcher at Abbott Northwestern Hospital; Bernita Missal, an associate professor of Nursing at Bethel University; Jeff Fliss, a patient care manager of float pool nurses in Abbott Northwestern Hospital; and Philippe Gaillard, a research associate at the University of Minnesota’s Office of Clinical and Translational Science, study the differences in patients’ assignment of float pool nurses against scheduled unit staff nurses.

The research work was a comparative study of various units in a quaternary care hospital in the Midwest. The hospital’s units are stratified in various communities of services. Conversely, the nurse patient ratio in the hospital is a nurse for every four patients during the day, and one nurse for every five or six patients at night. The researcher identified medical-surgical, orthopedic, neurology and cardiovascular inpatient care units’ of the hospital and compared the data the nurses with the collected data analyzed to provide the research findings.

The researchers identify a tendency for float nurses to receive tasks that were more challenging than their counterparts were. In line with this finding, the research highlights the importance of recruitment efforts focusing on allocation of resources to recruit and retain float pool nurses in order to meet the demanding role that they played during the process of care.