| Course | NR 587 Advanced Nursing Leadership Within Healthcare Environments |
|---|---|
| Week | 2 |
| Paper type | Practice environment assessment |
| Length | About 1,120 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | MSN, Nurse Executive |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NR 587 Week 2
Practice Environment Assessment: A 32-Bed Medical-Surgical Unit Measured by Vacancy, Contract Cover and Who Leaves When, With Each Figure Dated and Sourced
Student Name
College of Nursing, Chamberlain University
NR 587: Advanced Nursing Leadership Within Healthcare Environments
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Practice Environment Assessment: A 32-Bed Medical-Surgical Unit Measured by Vacancy, Contract Cover and Who Leaves When, With Each Figure Dated and Sourced
Defining the Area
The area is one adult medical-surgical unit with 32 beds in a 280-bed community hospital. It runs 12-hour shifts, 07:00 to 19:00 and 19:00 to 07:00. The budget provides 48.6 registered nurse full-time equivalents and 14 patient care technician equivalents. The planned ratio is 1:5 by day and 1:6 overnight, with a charge nurse on each shift who also takes a reduced assignment at night. Patients are mostly older adults after surgery or admitted with pneumonia, heart failure and infections. I am the assistant nurse manager for nights.
Where Each Figure Came From
Vacancies: human resources position control report, run 1 July 2026.
Contract cover: hospital staffing dashboard, April to June 2026, counting agency and travel nurse hours as a share of all registered nurse hours worked.
Turnover: human resources separation report for registered nurses hired between 1 January and 31 December 2025, followed for 12 months from each hire date, and for nurses with five or more years of service, January to December 2025.
Overtime: payroll report, April to June 2026.
Exit reasons: exit interview summaries from human resources, January 2025 to June 2026.
Each figure covers a different window. They are not added together or treated as if they described the same weeks.
Vacancy
On 1 July 2026, 7.2 registered nurse full-time equivalents were vacant, 15% of the budgeted 48.6. Of those, 5.0 were night positions and 2.2 were day positions. Four of the five night positions had been posted since March or earlier. The hospital's medical-surgical units as a group had 8% vacancy on the same date.
Leaving and Covering, Kept Apart
Leaving and covering are different problems, and the assessment treats them separately.
Leaving. Of 22 registered nurses hired in 2025, 9 left within 12 months of their hire date (41%). Of the 12 hired into night positions, 7 left (58%); of the 10 hired into day positions, 2 left (20%). Long-tenured staff, those past five years, lost 2 of 31 in 2025 (6%). Kovner et al. (2014) caution that turnover rates differ widely depending on who is counted and over what period, so the rate here is stated for a defined group: new hires followed for a year.
Covering. In April to June 2026, agency nurses worked 22% of night registered nurse hours and 4% of day hours. Staff overtime was 9% of night hours and 5% of day hours. Together, about a third of night nursing hours were worked by someone either from outside the unit or beyond their scheduled time.
The two connect: vacancies are filled by agency and overtime, and the nurses who leave are mostly new nurses on nights, which creates the vacancies. Keeping them apart shows that the hospital can reduce agency use by filling positions, but filling positions will not last if new night nurses keep leaving at this rate.
The Findings the Figures Support
First, the unit's problem is concentrated on nights. Vacancies, agency use, overtime and new-hire departures are all higher on nights than on days.
Second, it is concentrated among new nurses. The 58% first-year loss among night hires contrasts with 6% among experienced staff.
Third, the unit is unlike the hospital's other medical-surgical units. Its vacancy rate is nearly twice theirs.
Fourth, exit interviews point in three directions. Of the 9 leavers, 6 named workload, 5 named scheduling and 4 described how senior colleagues treated them on nights. Several named more than one.
The Environment as a Measured Thing
Lake (2002) developed a measure of the nursing practice environment with five parts: participation in hospital affairs, foundations for quality care, manager ability and support, staffing and resource adequacy, and nurse-physician relations. The figures above speak mainly to staffing and resource adequacy, and the exit interviews touch on manager support. The unit has not yet used that instrument. Doing so would let it compare its environment with published benchmarks, rather than relying on turnover alone.
What the Assessment Refuses to Conclude
It does not conclude that the night charge nurses are the cause. Four exit interviews mention treatment by senior colleagues, but exit interviews are completed by people who have already decided to leave and may emphasize one experience.
It does not conclude that ratios are the cause. The night ratio is one to six on this unit and on the surgical unit, which keeps its nurses, so the ratio alone cannot explain the difference, although Aiken et al. (2002) show that it matters.
It does not conclude that pay is the cause. Both units have the same pay and differential.
It does not judge the unit's culture. There is no measure of culture here yet; the next step is the engagement survey.
What a Stable Unit Looks Like
The surgical unit in the same building gives a reference point. It has 30 beds, the same shift pattern and pay, and the same night ratio. On 1 July 2026 it had one vacant position. Its agency share of night hours was 3%. Of 9 nurses it hired in 2025, 1 left within a year. Its night charge nurses have, on average, nine years on that unit; ours have four. Those differences do not explain the gap on their own, but they show what the same hospital can achieve with the same resources, which rules out explanations that apply to both units equally.
How the Figures Were Checked
The vacancy figure was checked against the posted positions list. The turnover figure was checked by matching each 2025 hire to the separation report by employee number, which found one nurse counted as a departure who had transferred to another unit; that nurse was removed. The agency figure was checked against invoices for June. These checks changed the turnover count from 10 to 9.
Gaps in the Data
The assessment has no figure for how many new nurses transferred to other units rather than leaving the hospital, which human resources counts separately. It has no data on agency nurses' own turnover. It cannot separate the effect of orientation length, because night and day hires had the same six-week orientation in 2025.
Next Step
The engagement survey from spring 2026 will be analyzed next, to see whether staff responses point to any of the three directions in the exit interviews, and whether nights and days differ.
References
Aiken, L. H., Clarke, S. P., Sloane, D. M., Sochalski, J., & Silber, J. H. (2002). Hospital nurse staffing and patient mortality, nurse burnout, and job dissatisfaction. JAMA, 288(16), 1987-1993. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.288.16.1987
Kovner, C. T., Brewer, C. S., Fatehi, F., & Jun, J. (2014). What does nurse turnover rate mean and what is the rate? Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice, 15(3-4), 64-71. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527154414547953
Lake, E. T. (2002). Development of the practice environment scale of the Nursing Work Index. Research in Nursing & Health, 25(3), 176-188. https://doi.org/10.1002/nur.10032
What the NR 587 Week 2 assignment asks for
The Week 2 assessment introduces the area first, by type, size, shift pattern and skill mix, so a reader knows the kind of place before any figure lands. Then give the figures one at a time, each with the window it covers: vacant lines and how long they have been open, the share of hours bought in, how many left in their first year against how many left after five. Keep leaving and covering separate, because they are different problems. Draw only the findings the figures support. Most rubrics mark down an assessment argued from memory, a figure with no window, figures mixed across levels such as a system turnover rate for a unit, and conclusions the figures cannot carry.
Inside the NR 587 Week 2 example
The sample describes a 32-bed unit in a 280-bed hospital, with 48.6 budgeted nurse positions, 12-hour shifts and the planned ratios. Five sources are listed with their windows. Vacancy is 7.2 positions, 15% of budget. Leaving is reported for 2025 hires followed for a year, by shift, with long-tenured staff alongside; covering is reported as agency and overtime shares. A stable surgical unit gives the reference point. Checks that changed one count are described. Four findings follow, then a validated practice environment scale, a list of what the assessment refuses to conclude and the data gaps. Margin notes show where the dated sources, the separation of leaving from covering and the comparison unit each earn credit.
NR 587 Week 2 rubric: what full points look like
The costliest version argues from memory, with nothing a reader could count; every claim here has a figure. A figure with no window can be read as a crisis or a normal week, so each source carries its dates. Mixing levels, such as a system figure for a unit argument, loses a row, and every figure here is for the unit. Merging leaving and covering hides which problem a fix would address, so they are kept apart. Refusing to conclude what the figures cannot support earns the analysis marks. Showing how a count was checked and corrected adds credibility the rubric rewards. Introducing a validated environment scale shows the writer knows where the unit's own figures stop.
NR 587 Week 2 help from the desk
Weak NR 587 Week 2 assessments describe the unit from experience without a single count. Others give a vacancy number without saying when it was taken. Many quote a hospital-wide turnover rate to argue about one unit. Leaving and covering are often blended into one staffing problem. Conclusions often run past the data, blaming a person or a ratio without evidence. Gather each figure from a named report, record its window and set it beside a comparison unit. Then list what you will not conclude. If your area differs, send your figures with their sources, and a sample assessment can lay them out the same way.
Get a NR 587 Week 2 example written to your instructions
Send us the assignment file and the rubric, plus a few lines about the area you would assess and which figures you can actually see. A custom NR 587 Week 2 example comes back inside 24-48h, written to your prompt, and the first is free. Where a figure is unavailable we show how the assessment argues around the gap.
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NR 587 Week 2 questions, answered
How narrow should the area be?
Narrow enough that one person could be held to it, which usually means a unit, a service or a shift rather than a hospital. These figures behave badly above that level, since a division that looks stable can contain one area losing people steadily. Assessments that widen tend to do so because the writer could not get the smaller numbers, and that is worth saying out loud.
Do I need agency or contract figures specifically?
Not necessarily, but you need something showing what the gap costs to cover. Overtime hours, extra shifts picked up, closed beds and canceled work all say the same thing in different currencies. What weakens an assessment is treating cover as a neutral fact rather than as the price of the vacancies described a page earlier.
Can the assessment cover a place I only know secondhand?
It can, but the writing gives it away. Assessments built from somebody else's account tend to be strong on numbers and empty on shift pattern, break relief and what the place is like at three in the morning. If the area is not yours, say so early and lean harder on the published figures than on description.
Where can I find a free NR 587 Week 2 sample paper?
The full practice environment assessment of a 32-bed medical-surgical unit, with dated figures and a stable comparison unit, is published on this page.
What does the NR 587 Week 2 assessment refuse to conclude?
That the night charge nurses, the ratio or pay is the cause, and anything about culture, because it has no measure of culture yet.