In many nursing homes , CNAs, who provide most of the personal care, and licensed nurses, who also provide direct care, are assigned to more residents than they can properly care for. In situations where unrealistic workloads exist, resident needs are often unmet, raising the risk of harmful and costly complications. This frustrates those who feel responsible for the care of residents. The responsibilities of licensed staff have expanded as the percentage of residents with complex mental, physical, and psychosocial care needs has increased. The workloads for licensed nurses have also grown due to an increase in mandatory record keeping and duplicative documentation that removes them from the frontlines.
Reasonable workloads are a necessary condition for quality care.
Staff schedules that conflict with outside responsibilities can cause stress and job dissatisfaction. Additionally, the s tructure of authority and responsibility in nursing homes tends to separate administrative nurses from staff nurses, and unit nurses from nursing assistants, and nursing assistants from residents. This can affect a team approach to care planning and delivery. Workplace Safety Adequate staffing is an essential component to workplace safety. Insufficient numbers of staff or a shortage of appropriately trained staff can contribute to increased risk for staff injuries and illness.