What Is Safe Nurse Staffing?

Cat Headline Image

Safe Staffing is appropriate levels of registered nurses (RNs) to always meet the care the needs of the patient.

Safe Staffing reduces hospital-acquired infections, length of stay, nurse turnover, and hospital costs.

Safe Staffing improves patient satisfaction, nurse retention, and productivity.

Safe Staffing saves lives!

Because of all these benefits from safe staffing, ANA believes that establishing safe staffing in all areas of health care is essential to improve health care delivery in America.  Providing adequate levels of skilled RNs improves the health care experience, promotes quality, and can help reduce health care costs.  Patients and nurses deserve safe nurse staffing!

Safe Staffing is achieved by staffing plans that account for the individual needs of each patient care unit.  ANA advocates for staffing plans based on nine principles of safe RN staffing related to patients, staff and organizations. These principles aim for at high-quality patient care in a work environment that values nurses’ skills and knowledge.  They can be applied most readily to hospital nursing, however are applicable to long term care, schools, and other places where nurses practice.   

For a full description, see ANA's Utilization Guide to the Principles on Safe Staffing.



Patients

Staff

Organizations
  • Appropriate staffing levels reflect the individual and aggregate patient care needs on the care unit.
  • There is a critical need to retire or seriously question the usefulness of concept of nursing hours per patient day.
  • Unit functions necessary to support delivery of quality of care must be considered in determining staffing levels.
  • The specific needs of various patient populations should determine appropriate clinical competencies required of nurses practicing in that area. 
  • RNs must have nursing management support and representation at both the operational and executive level.
  • Clinical support from experienced RNs should be available to colleagues.

 
  • Organizational policy should reflect an organizational climate that values RNs as strategic assets, and exhibits true commitment to filling positions in a timely manner.
  • All institutions should have documented competencies for nursing staff, including agency or supplemental RNs, for those activities they have been authorized to perform.
  • Organizational policies should recognize the myriad needs of both patients and RN staff.



Resources

Utilization Guide for Principles for Nurse Staffing [PDF]
Nurse staffing needs are complex and making a staffing plan can be difficult. For this reason, ANA developed this guide for creating safe staffing plans that meet all the needs of nurses and patients.
ANA members, click on the title to log into Members Only and view this document. Non-members, see the link below to purchase a copy of this guide.
Safe Nurse Staffing Resources
Use these ANA information resources to learn more about how nursing shortages and budget cutbacks affect safe nurse staffing ratios.
© 2010 The American Nurses Association, Inc. All Rights Reserved
American Nurses Association - 8515 Georgia Avenue - Suite 400 - Silver Spring, MD 20910
1-800-274-4ANA
Privacy Statement | Copyright Policy
From: 
Email:  
To: 
Email:  
Subject: 
Message: