We all know how important it is to ensure Safety in Nursing. As patients or futures patients, safety in nursing can, as it often does, save our life. That is pretty important! But what about Nurse Safety - what are the consequences of not equally ensuring nurse safety?
Nurses are the very definition of frontline healthcare workers, and they play a vital role in maintaining the health and well-being of all of us, especially through a pandemic. So of course, it is important to provide nurses with the resources they need to safely do the excellent and vital job they are capable of doing. That ensures safety in nursing.
However, what is too often overlooked, is the real impact and consequence of not equally ensuring Nurse Safety.
Impact of Nurse Absences
When nurse safety is jeopardized, their health becomes jeopardized, and this results in lowered performance, and ultimately absenteeism. When nurses are ailing and absenteeism increases, not only do effectiveness and efficiency suffer, but your costs of operations also escalate, in hospitals, care centers, outpatient surgery centers, and other medical facilities.
In April 2020, during the peak of the pandemic, COVID-19 was responsible for one-third of nurse absences. With limited knowledge of the novel virus, nurses lacked the proper PPE to stay safe, causing those numbers to continue to rise during the harshest parts of the pandemic. With the increase of nurse absenteeism, hospitals struggled as their workflows and processes took a major hit.
An increase in absenteeism is the same as understaffing. During the pandemic when medical centers needed increased staff, they found themselves lacking adequate nursing resource, partially because of health concerns and lack of proper protection to keep nurses safe. Such understaffing not only led to issues with workflow, it also placed the lives of the patients at increased risk. Additionally, institutionally and business wise, it added to operational cost at the worst of economic times.
The absence of nurses has such a significant impact on hospitals and organizations financially that focusing on nurse safety is crucial when interested in reducing overhead costs. When nurses are not able to show up for shifts, hospitals have to pay for temporary nurses, and clinical and business managers go into overtime mode coping with all the changes that are required, and which additionally drives up expenses.
Protecting Nurses
Protecting frontline nurses and other healthcare personnel is MAXAIR Systems’ business, and we can help your organization ensure Nurse Safety with a unique and proven, comfortable, convenient, safe, and cost-effective solution.
MAXAIR Systems is a recognized leader in providing increased worker safety with our unique powered air purifying respirators (PAPRs), for various environments as healthcare, pharmaceutical manufacturing, bio-research labs, and industrial markets.
Contact MAXAIR Systems today to ensure your Nurse Safety is on a par with your Safety in Nursing.
