The national standards that are used to evaluate nursing-sensitive care were endorsed in
2004 by the National Quality forum (Gallagher & Rowell, 2003). The American Nursing Association arrived at a set of nursing-sensitive indicators after conducting a survey to evaluate the relationship between quality care and nurse staffing (Gallagher & Rowell, 2003). The indicators have an influence on the quality of care received by a patient and therefore, influence a patient’s outcome. The understanding of nursing-sensitive indicators helps nurses in improving the quality of nursing care.

The nursing-sensitive indicators that would have assisted nurses to deal with the issues that may interfere with patient care in the case study provided entails the understanding of restraint prevalence (Gallagher & Rowell, 2003). Restraints can be applied to patients for varying reasons; to keep the patient in a right position, to avoid patient’s movement or a fall while the patient is on a stretcher, or so deter the patient from hurting self. The situation presented does not clearly state how necessary it was to have Mr. J under restraints and if the restraints could not lead to further complications to the fractured hip. Mr. J is already in a drowsy state and thus the use of restraints was not very necessary.

According to the hour per day indicator, reveals that the nurse assigned the responsibility of handling Mr. J was not performing the full responsibilities because Mr. J asks for help when he notices daughter and the daughter is also the first to notice the red pressed area over Mr. J’s spine. Again, the nurse dismisses this as nothing to worry about when in the actual sense it could be an indicator of pressure ulcer over that particular area. This is an indication of the negligence of the nursing staff because the pressure ulcer prevalence is among the most significant nursing-sensitive indicators (Montalvo, 2007). The religious reservations on Mr. J’s diet were also not strictly observed and the incident was taken lightly by the nurse. Comprehending the nursing sensitive indicators would have enabled the nurse caring for Mr. J to avoid the above mistakes and this would have had a positive impact on Mr. J’s outcome.

Hospital data on specific nursing-sensitive indicators could advance quality patient care throughout the hospital by analyzing the data collected to evaluate the effectiveness of the specified nursing sensitive indicator (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). When data on the indicators is accurately recorded, then analysis of such data can reveal to hospital administration the areas that need to be further developed to improve the quality of care in the hospital. The data can also reveal how much the concepts of nursing-sensitive indicators have been conceptualized by the nursing staff and how they are applying the knowledge when handling their patients. Nurse-patient relationships can also be monitored through such records. Based on findings from the hospital data, the nursing service system can be improved through various measures that the hospital management may deem fit such as in-service training for the nurses.

Most of the ethical issues in Mr. J’s scenario would be dealt with by improving implementation of the nursing sensitive indicators in the hospital. However, the issue of the dietary request would require the hospital to have systems in place because the physician informed the hospital administrator that he had received the same complaint from Jewish patients in the past six months. As the nursing shift supervisor, I would schedule a meeting attended by nurses and dietary workers to explain the need for strict adherence to a patient’s dietary restrictions (Arif, 2016).

With approval from the administrator, I would also invite travel nurses from the Jewish hospitals to our hospital to help assist in providing care to Jewish patients and share insights with our nurses on guidelines for handling the Jewish patients. A deliberate attempt to understand the Jewish background and beliefs coupled with enriched knowledge and implementation of nursing-sensitive indicators will enhance the nurses’ performance and positive health outcomes for patients.