A safe patient standard in hospitals means a nurse would have time to listen, observe, assess and evaluate. It means enough nurses would be on duty so patients can be treated like individuals and given the attention they deserve at the time they need it. When that happens, health care isn’t as chaotic – and costly – as it currently is.
Without a standard of care, having the luxury of time comes sporadically, but when it does, good things happen. From the blog Costs of Care, here’s a registered nurse offering a great example of how a little more time can save a lot more money.
Situations like these are commonplace to nurses across the country. We witness daily that more is not necessarily better, and we are in a position to help make decisions that lower costs without negatively impacting the patient’s care.
Read more at Cost Containment: The Importance of Nurses by September Wallingford
