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Kristie Aylett, AACN Communications, 228-229-9472, [email protected]
New resource from American Association of Critical-Care Nurses provides guidance to help organizations address the complex challenges of nurse staffing
ALISO VIEJO, Calif., April 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) has published "AACN Standards for Appropriate Staffing in Adult Critical Care," the specialty's first, action-oriented staffing standards.
Appropriate staffing has long been one of the "AACN Standards for Establishing and Sustaining Healthy Work Environments" (HWE standards), first published in 2005. It has also been one of the most complex areas to address.
On every national survey conducted by AACN to measure the health of clinical work environments between 2005 and 2019, nurses consistently gave lower ratings for survey items related to the appropriate staffing standard than for items related to the other HWE standards. In the most recent national survey, conducted in 2021, the item labeled "ensuring an effective match between patient needs and nurse competencies" received the lowest mean rating of any element on any of these surveys conducted to date.
Besides the HWE standards, the new staffing-specific standards build on AACN's other influential resources...