Saskatchewan: improving patient, nursing and organizational outcomes utilizing formal nurse-patient ratios

The issue of nurse-to-patient ratios has been of significant interest to nurses in Saskatchewan. A commitment to a nurse-to-patient pilot project was articulated in a letter of understanding in the 2005 to 2008 contract between the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN) and the Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations. The SUN, the Saskatoon Health Region and the Saskatchewan Ministry of Health formed a partnership to engage in the pilot project, which lasted from November 2008 to March 2011. The project involved the creation of a flexible, dynamic and real-time staffing tool to inform day-to-day nurse staffing decisions on a hospital unit and was based on an adaptation of Curley's Synergy Model. A medical unit at St. Paul's Hospital in Saskatoon was selected for implementation, and all front-line nursing staff as well as unit nursing leaders were involved. A project working group adapted the Synergy-based Patient Scoring Tool (PST), which had been utilized for a recent project in British Columbia, to its own patient population. In April 2010, nurses began assessing each patient on every shift with the goal of determining the most suitable care provider. Patient assignment became based on the holistic assessment of patient needs according to the PST results rather than "geography" (for example, one nurse assigned to a multi-bed unit regardless of the acuity/capability of patients in the unit). Whenever possible, staffing on the unit was increased according to tool calculations.Positive impacts in patient outcomes began to be noted during the final data collection period for the project – nosocomial infection rates showed improvement, and the number of falls per patient-days decreased. As well, patient needs were made more visible through use of the PST, which created non-threatening opportunities for dialogue related to legislated scopes of practice. While longer timelines and larger sample size are needed to measure impacts on retention and recruitment of nurses, nurses in the project demonstrated increased engagement over the study period. The tools and processes developed in this project are adaptable to other patient populations and care settings.