In order to reduce repeated tests, information technology has been used to optimize nursing plans and medical assistants in the medical and health field. However, information technology still cannot replace manpower in patient care services. As far as the hospital itself is concerned, nearly 70% of the budget is used for labor costs. Nurses, therapists and physicians are still indispensable.
Improper manpower allocation leads to medical errors.
When it comes to labor costs, we have to face the increasing cost pressure due to the gradual transformation of the medical industry to commercialization. China's medical institutions are undergoing comprehensive medical reform, and the constant transformation and economic pressure have invisibly increased the cost variables in the operation of medical institutions. The first solution that medical institutions think of is to reduce the number of nurses to reduce the cost pressure. However, if the number of nurses is not properly reduced, it will cause many problems, such as medical accidents, poor quality of patient care, and other nurses are overworked. Medical institutions even need to face more serious problems, such as staff turnover caused by excessive workload, medical litigation and so on.
In order to solve this problem, some organizations take the ratio of nurses to patients as the basis of staffing. As early as a century ago, the United States required hospitals to accept medical insurance funds to ensure that "there are enough certified registered nurses, intern nurses and other personnel to provide services for all patients who need care." At present, California and Massachusetts have enacted relevant laws that stipulate the minimum ratio of nurses to patients. In 2004, the operating room ratio in California was 1: 1, and the ward ratio was 1:6. The relevant laws also require that "hospitals should maintain a patient sensitivity grading system, which can be used to guide other employees when necessary, and assign some nursing work to nurses with registered nurse licenses. Before assigning nursing work to nurses, measure nurses' working ability and provide appropriate positions, and record the staffing situation. "
In 20 14, Massachusetts also set a minimum ratio of nurses to patients, but this ratio only applies to intensive care. In addition, seven other states require hospitals to set up staff committees to be responsible for planning and staff policies (CT, IL, NV, OH, or, TCX, WA), and five other states require some form of public and/or public reporting function (IL, NJ, NY, RI, VT). 2065438+On April 29th, 2005, Congressmen Lois Capps (D-CA) and David Joyce (R-OH) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) introduced the registered nurse safety employee action, requiring the participating medical institutions to establish a committee to ensure that at least 55% of the institutions are front-line nursing nurses, and to establish a nurse staff plan for each department.
At the same time, relevant medical and health research and treatment institutions have written policy innovation documents, and pointed out the problems caused by the low nurse-patient ratio by evaluating medical literature. A large number of studies have proved that the low rate has many negative effects on patient safety and rehabilitation results, including serious problems such as premature death and complications.
Let's come back and look at the comparison between the world and China. According to the existing standards of the Ministry of Health, the actual bed-to-nurse ratio in general wards of hospitals in China is not less than 0.4: 1, and each nurse is responsible for no more than 8 patients on average. However, at present, there is a serious shortage of clinical frontline nurses, and many hospitals simply cannot meet this standard. Nurses have been overworked and the environment is dirty for a long time, and the brain drain is serious, which forms a serious contradiction with the growing nursing group in China.
Can information technology cure diseases?
To sum up, most institutions will set up the establishment of nurses according to the number of patients. Although the above legislation provides some guidance for the establishment of institutions, the proportion does not really take into account the needs of patients. The staffing method based on the number of patients is too direct, which does not combine the nursing needs of patients with the sensitivity of patient diagnosis, and does not dig out valuable guiding information from relevant data.
In addition, the patient data provided by the electronic medical record driven by HITECH (Economic and Clinical Medical Information Technology) Act accurately evaluates the patient's nursing needs and required staff skills. Electronic medical records are also applied to patient sensitivity assessment, providing reliable and accurate assessment for patients and their nursing needs, thus enabling medical institutions to achieve more accurate clinical staffing.
Although information technology can never replace patient care workers, it provides us with a smarter way to enable these workers to help their patients in the most effective way. Other industries may also bring negative experiences to their consumers by reducing the number of employees. But for the medical institution industry, the seriousness of the problem is far from simple as negative experience, because the health and life of patients depend on them. Therefore, medical institutions can only provide better services to patients continuously, and there is no other choice.
It is precisely because of the need to provide better services for patients that medical institutions must ensure that nurses are not overworked, so as to avoid unnecessary medical errors and truly provide a safe environment for patients. The use of new digital medical information technologies, such as electronic medical records, Internet medical care, telemedicine and big data analysis, is changing the interaction between doctors, patients and other medical professionals. Relying on the latest information technology tools, medical institutions can obtain a good method that can not only meet the needs of patients, but also protect the investment of nursing staff and manage nursing costs more effectively.