UCC_SNM_e_Scholarly_Impact_Report_report

INTRODUCTION

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MAKING AN IMPACT: CASES STUDIES

PROGRAMME OF RESEARCH ON SAFE NURSE STAFFING AND SKILL-MIX The health workforce research team at the SONM-UCC is having a national impact on the development of policy on safe nurse staffing and skill-mix for medical, surgical, emergency and specialist settings in hospitals in Ireland. Funded by the Health Research Board and the Department of Health, the research is providing vital evidence on the impact that safe nurse staffing has on the provision of quality patient care, the nursing profession and the costs of care delivery.

Previous research has shown that an increase in a nurses’ workload by one patient increases the likelihood of an in-patient dying within 30 days of admission by 7% (Aiken et al. 2014 1 ). We also know that, as well as a relationship between nurse staffing and mortality, there is a relationship between nurse staffing and levels of missed care, job satisfaction and staff turnover. Working closely with the Department Health, the HSE and our international colleagues (University of Southampton, the University of Technology Sydney and the National University of Ireland, Galway), the research team, led by Professor Jonathan Drennan, are ensuring that staffing levels meet patient acuity and

dependency levels; that is, the right nurse, is in the right place, at the right time to deliver care. The research is unique in that the team works closely with the Department of Health, the Health Service Executive, nursing and healthcare assistants’ representative unions and clinical staff in hospital settings. This approach ensures that key policy makers, healthcare leaders and nurses and HCAs are involved not only in determining the development of policy for safe nurse staffing, but are also involved in determining how the policy is impacting on the delivery of high quality care to patients.

5 Lehane E., McLoughlin K., Mannix M., O’Caoimg, R., Hickey M., McCague M., Coffey A., & Gallagher P. (2016) Palliative Care for Persons with Dementia Guidance Document 5: Medication and Dementia –Palliative Assessment and Management . Dublin: Irish Hospice Foundation. http://hospicefoundation.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Final-Guidance-Document-7-Medication.pdf 6 McCarthy, J., Campbell, L., Dalton-O’Connor, C., Andrews, T. and McLoughlin, K. (2016). Palliative Care for the Person with Dementia. Guidance Document 6: Ethical Decision Making in End-of-Life Care and the Person with Dementia. Dublin: Irish Hospice Foundation. http://hospicefoundation.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Final-Guidance-Document-6-Ethics.pdf 7 Cornally, N., McLoughlin K., Coffey A., Weathers, E., Buckley C., Mannix M., Molloy DW., Timmons S. (2016) Palliative Care for Persons with Dementia Guidance Document 7: Pain Assessment and Management. Dublin: Irish Hospice Foundation. http://hospicefoundation.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Final-Guidance-Document-5-Pain.pdf

GROWTH, INNOVATION AND IMPACT of the SONM-UCC

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