“A single-hospital study of travel nurses and quality: What is their impact on hospital experience” was conducted by Faller, Dent, and Gogek. The study aims to ascertain how travel nurses impact the standard of patient care and the overall patient experience. The study finds a rising trend in using travel nurses in the hospital context, indicating a growing reliance on these temporary medical staff to fill staffing gaps.in addition, the study finds that the presence of travel nurses favorably affects patient satisfaction. Patients who received care from travel nurses expressed more significant overall satisfaction. However, despite having a beneficial impact on patient satisfaction, the study did not find any statistically significant differences between travel nurses’ and permanent personnel’ quality of care. Therefore, this implies that even though patients are satisfied with the care they receive from travel nurses, there is little difference between the satisfaction of those satisfied with the care of travel nurses and that of permanent personnel. Thus, this paper will examine the hypothesis, sample, methodology, and study findings used by the study to arrive at this conclusion.
Hypothesis/Purpose
The study examines how travel nurses affected the standard of patient care and patients’ overall satisfaction in a single hospital setting (Faller et al., 2017). In particular, the researchers want to know how the presence of travel nurses and temporary healthcare workers hired to fill staffing shortfalls affects many facets of patient care, such as safety, satisfaction, and outcomes. Additionally, by examining a particular scenario, a hospital with a certain yearly period where patient demand increases, the study aims to contribute to the body of research already conducted in the area (Faller et al., 2017). This is because there is still much to learn about using additional nurses, mainly travel nurses.
Population/Sample
In this study, a community hospital in Southern America’s usage of travel nurses is studied. With an estimated population of over 300,000, the hospital is an example of a large regional provider in an urban-rural setting. It is in one of the country’s areas with the highest population growth rate (Faller et al., 2017). As a result, it exhibits the traits of a healthcare provider with extensive coverage in rural areas and urban solid demand.
Methodology
The researchers use a quantitative research approach to gather data. According to Fain (2020), constructing knowledge through qualitative research emphasizes verbal descriptions and the significance of the experience for the individual. To explain how the use of travel nurses impacts patient satisfaction and care quality in a particular hospital setting, Faller et al. (2017) gathered data on patient experiences and outcomes by considering patient satisfaction, length of hospital stay, and adverse events. The results are then contrasted across units or departments that use travel nurses and those that do not. The first method compares units with travel nurses and the identical units with a small number or no travel nurses using Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scores. The second method uses the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI), calculated for each unit using nursing-sensitive indicators derived from standardized data reporting in the national dataset assembled from member hospitals (Faller et al., 2017). Units with travel nurses were measured using the NDNQI and compared to identical or comparable units with few or no travel nurses.
Results
Few statistically significant changes were found when HCAHPS and NDNQI data on travel nurse coverage were compared within and between units. There needed to be a clear pattern in the few tests where statistically significant changes did exist (Faller et al., 2017). However, the researchers found no appreciable variations in patient satisfaction or the standard of treatment among five distinct nursing units with various travel nurse coverage rates.
Despite a few notable findings for a few scores and units, there needed to be more agreement among these findings to identify a trend. The inconsistencies in the results imply that some other factor, rather than the number of travel nurses, was responsible for the significant findings. There are no differences in the quality of care given to patients when travel nurses are used, according to the majority of tests that showed no significant variances and the lack of significant trends in the few tests that did disclose significant differences (Faller et al., 2017). However, this study has significant limitations, including the fact that it only examined the use of travel nurses at one hospital in a rapidly growing mid-sized urban area in the southern United States.
Conclusion
The study’s results demonstrate whether using travel nurses affects hospital patient care quality and satisfaction positively or negatively. In addition, they demonstrate the importance of temporary staffing options, such as travel nurses, in meeting healthcare demands and any potential difficulties or areas for development in their integration into the healthcare team. Ideally, the study concludes that travel nurses are increasingly important in managing staffing shortages in healthcare settings. Moreover, it emphasizes how crucial it is for healthcare teams to effectively integrate and communicate to leverage the advantages of hiring travel nurses.
References
Fain, J. A. (2020). Reading, understanding, and applying nursing research. FA Davis. https://ds.amu.edu.et/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/8415
Faller, M., Dent, B., & Gogek, J. (2017). A single-hospital study of travel nurses and quality: What is their impact on the patient experience? Nurse Leader, 15(4), 271–275. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1541461217300745
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