What criterion should a nurse manager use to evaluate care during a disaster drill involving nurses reassigned to the emergency department?

In evaluating care during a disaster drill, particularly with nurses reassigned to the emergency department, assessing the nurse-to-client ratio on units is crucial. This criterion helps ensure that there are sufficient nursing staff available to provide safe and effective care to patients in a high-stress and potentially chaotic environment such as an emergency department during a disaster.

A proper nurse-to-client ratio is essential for maintaining quality care, minimizing nurse burnout, and ensuring that all patients receive the attention and time they need for treatment. In a disaster scenario, where patient volume may increase rapidly due to an influx of casualties, monitoring the nurse-to-client ratio can indicate whether the facility is adequately staffed to handle the situation effectively.

While employee feedback and client satisfaction scores can provide valuable insights into the performance and morale of the staff and the perceived quality of care, these metrics may not directly reflect the immediate operational capacity during a disaster. Similarly, patient discharge times might be important for assessing efficiency, but they do not directly account for the quality or safety of care provided during a crisis where the focus is often on immediate stabilization and treatment rather than timely discharges.