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PSQH Quick Poll 2025: Taking the Pulse of Nursing’s Impact on Patient Safety

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By Jay Kumar

As part of National Nurses Week, PSQH reached out to our readers with a few questions about how nursing impacts patient safety and healthcare quality. The Quick Poll had a total of 102 respondents. The PSQH Quick Poll is presented in partnership with Drexel University.

Organizational support

Asked about organizational support for nurses, 62% of respondents said their organizations were somewhat effectively supporting nurses (compared to 58% a year ago), while 24% chose very effectively (the same as last year), 13% said somewhat poorly (compared to 17% in 2024), and 1% said very poorly (the same as last year).

Areas of support

Support can come in many forms. Asked about areas of support in which their organization needs to improve, 68% of respondents chose worker retention. This was followed by education and training (47%), nurse-to-patient ratios (41%), emotional support (36%), and opportunities for advancement (32%).

Write-in responses included:

  • Filling vacancies
  • Back to basics education
  • Team morale is very low right now
  • Work life balance and urgent resource needs with patient care spikes in activity
  • Improved accountability for behavior
  • Punitive actions by administration
  • Salary
  • Nurse hostility
  • Worker safety
  • Including real working nurses in policy decisions, not executives that are not at bedside
  • Staffing

Workplace violence

Asked about their level of concern about nurses being exposed to workplace violence, 52% of respondents said they were very concerned (compared to 53% a year ago), 40% were somewhat concerned (compared to 33% in 2024), and 8% were not concerned (compared to 14% last year).

Consequences of medical errors

Asked if they were concerned about the consequences of making a medical error, 44% of respondents said they were somewhat concerned, 30% were very concerned, and 27% were not concerned.

Attracting new nurses

Asked how concerned they are about the nursing profession’s ability to attract new nurses, 50% of respondents said they were very concerned, 40% said they were somewhat concerned, and 11% said they were not concerned.

Those who were very or somewhat concerned were asked what should be done to bring new nurses into the profession and their write-in responses included the following:

  • Old school training-people have to understand they hold people lives in their hands. Compassion is a key-money is nothing when it comes to a life-no amount of money can replace the life of a child, mother, father, etc.
  • Attracting them is not the issue. It’s retaining them. Many of our nurses come to us as new grads, get trained, then move to bigger hospitals for more $. Our nurse patient ratios are unsustainable. 1:6 is a luxury on a mixed med-surge tele unit. It starts with 1:6 then can go as high as 1:8 especially on the off shifts. In addition to getting at least one admission, the nurse has 1-2 discharges which can be more work than an admission. There is no time to give them clear discharge instructions. They get rushed out to make room for the next patient.
  • Improve/maintain the integrity of the profession and the viewpoint from the general public.
  • Healthcare is an absolute nightmare in Alberta. The government is destroying our healthcare system so here, in particular, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to go into a health profession at this time.
  • Too many online nursing schools and nurses are not getting the experience as years ago and when they get in the work area, they are overwhelmed and not prepared for the workload and responsibility. Prepare them better instead of setting them up for failure
  • More emphasis on the well-being of our present workforce. Too many of us are exhausted and overwhelmed and present a poor image of the profession as a result.
  • Market the benefits of this career path.
  • Better education/training not only for how to be a nurse but also with situational de-escalation skills.
  • Recruiting needs to start earlier, such as with high school students. We also need to offer flexible learning for those who want to become nurses but can’t be full time students. We need to work on public attitudes towards healthcare. The COVID-era healthcare heroes are today’s healthcare punching bags (verbally and sometimes physically). This has to stop!
  • There are a lot of ‘other’ opportunities out there that were not available to people before that are draining the historical talent pool for nursing. Need to emphasize the good things that nurses do.
  • Allow nurses to take care of patients. So many times the emphasis is on making the family comfortable and other things that it feels like a hotel instead of a healing environment.
  • Recruit nurse educators, that seems to be a big problem in our state.
  • Mentorship programs for new nurses, working above complement for a period of time after they become licensed.
  • We need to assure that we are presenting a realistic view of the field: the joys and challenges, and that the reward for this field is more than money.
  • Elevate the status of nursing.
  • Correcting all the “somewhat concerned” areas. Encourage incoming staff to learn and grow in areas that they would like to excel in. Have staff availability to precept without cutting corners and juggling tasks/time. The staff see financial advancement proving they are worth more as a professional. Even a small amount would nurture growth. Staff are concerned that there is no security especially on weekends and nights to guard from the outside predators. If there is free counsel to assist in mental health for workers no one is aware of this. This would be helpful to those workers who are burdened from the outside and may bring anxiety to work. We have safeguards in place to prevent med errors. Staff will often attempt to find a way to bypass it when they can.
  • Collectively as a profession, I’d like to see our professional organizations unite more, sharing a collective voice to advocate for nurses. I know nurses are the most respected professional by the public, but healthcare organizations need to do more to demonstrate how much nurses are valued.
  • Provide opportunities for ongoing learning and advancements.
  • Safer work environment.
  • More clinical time in school, nurses coming out of school today do not have clinical skills and will tell you i did not go into nursing to bathe a patient. they need to realize what a bedside nurse does.
  • Better protection for nurses.
  • Education to focus on hands-on training more than tests.
  • Zero tolerance for bullying behavior. Elevate professionalism. Eliminate petty squabbles.
  • Redesign of the nursing education process. Schools are not keeping up.
  • Highlight the benefits and rewards of becoming a nurse. Provide increased scholarships and financial aid to those going into the nursing field.
  • As a nurse for over 20 years, I see a disconnect in the new nurses or those attracted to nursing for the salary alone. I also see challenges with sign on bonuses with two-year commitments as being a challenge. This promotes, “job hopping” as newer nurses see the financial gain. I would love to see more of the humanistic side of nursing reported and less focus on the financial benefit. I feel as though nursing is losing some of the compassion, especially with workplace violence, increasing nurse patient ratios, challenges such as electronic documentation which puts the nurse in front of the computer instead of talking directly to the patient. I strongly support shared governance and growing nursing practice through unit-based councils. I believe that hospitals need more support in offering these types of programs as it is a change in culture.
  • I believe the issue of workplace violence needs to be addressed. We are fortunate that we have good leadership, but that is not the case everywhere. We also have good staffing ratios, which is also not the case everywhere.
  • I fear we are working to attract interested individuals but worry that the quality of the person and their clinical hands-on exposure is far too limited; we end up with a workforce that is ill prepared, falls short of our needs, expectations.
  • Look at ways to retain nurses. A large percentage of experienced nurses will be retiring in the next 5 years and the experience, commitment, and expertise is no longer there with the younger nurses.
  • Develop a “no tolerance” policy for patients/family members who injure/threaten staff and press charges. Pay nurses more (all nurses, not just those at the bedside). It is a hazardous job and combat pay should be provided. Train and educate all the time. Reward staff for staying, when someone invaluable plans to leave, do everything in your power to have them stay.
  • Offer early training to high school kids interested in the healthcare field; offer government incentives to help with student loans; continue to recognize nursing for the great profession that it is!
  • Revamp the onboarding process. Appeal to the new generation of nurses.
  • Decreased workload, time for charting in addition to providing care. There aren’t enough nurses to fill the gaps and “middle management” used to support staff are being laid off as cost containment, which only decreases energy to advance and then stresses out care providers.