Effects of the Nursing Shortage
A study published in the January/February 2006 journal Health Affairs provides new evidence that if hospitals invest in appropriate Registered Nurse (RN) staffing, thousands of lives and millions of dollars could be saved each year. Specifically, the study shows that if hospitals increased RN staffing and hours of nursing care per patient, more than 6,700 patient deaths and four million days of care in hospitals could be avoided each year. In addition, the anticipated financial benefits of savings per avoided patient death or hospitalization may also be significant. This study is important because it highlights the fact that people suffer and die when nursing care is inadequate. It is the latest study in a growing body of evidence that clearly demonstrates that nurses make the critical, cost-effective difference in providing safe, high-quality patient care. For details, see the press release posted below.
A study on the nursing shortage by Linda Aiken of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing found that an estimated 20,000 people die each year because they have checked into a hospital with overworked nurses. The study also found that Americans scheduled for routine surgeries run a 31 percent greater risk of dying if they are admitted to a hospital with a severe shortage of nurses. That’s approximately one-fifth of the up to 98,000 deaths that occur each year as a result of medical errors. Nurses in the study cared for an average of four patients at a time, with the risk of death increasing by about 7 percent for each additional patient cared for over that baseline number. This study highlights the fact that people can and do die when nursing care is inadequate. (Source: “Hospital Nurse Staffing and Patient Mortality, Nurse Burnout, and Job Dissatisfaction,” study; see Journal of the American Medical Association, Oct. 23-30, 2002.)
More than one-third of practicing physicians and 40 percent of the public say they or a family member have experienced a medical error, according to a survey reported Dec. 12, 2002, in the New England Journal of Medicine. And, while the two groups diverged on possible causes and solutions, both ranked shortages of nurses; and overwork, stress and fatigue among health care workers as "very important" causes of errors. (Source: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health. For full results of the study, see www.kff.org.)
A Harris poll revealed that more than half of Americans believe the quality of health care is affected “a great deal” by a shortage of nurses. Only 4 percent of respondents said the quality of health care that people receive was not affected by a nursing shortage. (Harris Poll, July 7, 1999. Commissioned by Sigma Theta Tau Intl., NurseWeek Publishing Inc.)