Critical incidents due to work intensification in nursing
23.07.2012 11:40
According to a study by the German Institute for Applied Nursing Research (dip) eV, the risks for patients are increasing due to the increased workload and the procedural deficiencies in patient care that are still encountered.
That is why the DGVP eV for Health calls for a stronger focus on the nursing professions and their tasks in the interest of providing care/treatment/care for those in need of care and patients. DGVP President Wolfram-Arnim Candidus is convinced that this includes the full integration of the skills of this largest professional group into the entire care process.
For more than a decade, the DGVP eV has been committed to securing the future of care among the healthcare system's governing bodies and the public.
“We know through ongoing discussion with our experts that demographic trends coupled with technology innovation will create extreme challenges for care. In addition, there is the necessary relief for doctors and therapists through the assumption of responsibility by the nursing profession. The greater integration of nursing competence is important and right,” says Candidus. “The tasks of the nursing professional group must be divided into qualifications for primary care with the highest quality requirements, secondary care with an intermediate qualification for caring for patients and tertiary care for accompanying and caring for patients and those in need of care.”
“The dip study is frightening: the increase in work does not only have a negative impact in the area of caring for relatives and in the psychosocial support of patients. The nursing staff are prepared to take on a high level of responsibility - but due to the high level of stress, the error rate also increases in the core elements of nursing work, such as appropriately monitoring confused patients, mobilizing patients or supporting feeding. This is dangerous!"
The DGVP eV therefore demands immediate decisions from politicians: It is about securing the future of care/treatment/support for patients, those in need of care and relatives. They must not be put at even greater risk. The demographic development in the coming years and decades does not allow decisions on the topic of care to be delayed.
Candidus continues: “Because of the increasing workload of the nursing profession, we also need support with technical devices, with information technology, with practical devices for documentation and we need incentives in terms of recognition of this professional group and remuneration. What is necessary is a cocktail of measures that cannot be made palatable through liberal ideas about more market and competition, but only through the immediate implementation of measures to ensure supply/treatment/care. So no isolated mini-steps of modification.”