Paper on Do Mandatory Overtime Laws Improve Quality Medicine Essay (Essay Sample)

Do Mandatory Overtime Laws Improve Quality?
Hisham S.
Do Mandatory Overtime Laws Improve Quality?
Do Mandatory Overtime Laws Improve Quality?
The increasing of the aging population and the patient's volume in the last fifteen years, encourage the employers to apply mandatory overtime on nurses as a response to the patient's volume. As a result of using mandatory overtime, nurses facing daily fatigue, sleeplessness, and disqualification. Also, working extended hours increases the chances of musculoskeletal injuries, needle sticks, and near motor vehicle crashes due to drowsy driving among nurses. (Ilhan et al. 2006). Furthermore, mandatory overtime affects negatively the patient safety and nurse job satisfaction so that mandatory overtime affects negatively the quality of care. Consequently, the states issued laws to prevent using of mandatory overtime, also after the nursing situation agitated the public concern about health care. The purpose of laws is to restrict the mandatory overtime except for emergency crisis and to improve the health care quality.
The Tools for Mandatory Laws
The states legislated two methods to implement mandatory laws. The first method is the nurses have the right to refuse mandatory overtime requested by the employers unless it is an emergency proponent of bans on mandatory overtime have shown that such regulation can improve quality of patient care as well as nurses work condition. ( Washington State Department of Labor and Industries 2002). The second method; prevent nurses from working consecutive hours over the official working hours per day. Furthermore, the American Nurses Association supports the state's laws, as it is a good opportunity to enhance the quality of health care forward. Hence, studying the impact of mandatory overtime laws became crucial to determine the implications of health care.