Overworked
Nurses Put Patient Care at Risk: Study
Survey results by a national healthcare labor
union indicate hospital nurses in America are
caring for too many patients and that understaffing
is resulting in poor patient care and nurse burnout.
At a time when the nation is struggling to attract
more young men and women to the nursing profession,
a majority of nurses say the situation for registered
nurses is the same (30 percent) or getting worse
(49 percent).
AFT Healthcare, which commissioned the survey,
said medical-surgical nurses are responsible for
an average of eight patients during a shift. More
than two-thirds are overseeing six or more patients
at a time.
Nurses say their typical patient load greatly
exceeds optimal levels. Two-thirds believe they
should be responsible for five or fewer patients
in a single shift, according to the poll, conducted
in March by Peter D. Hart Research Associates.
Mary McDonald, director of AFT Healthcare, suggests
the quality of care in U.S. hospitals is suffering
because of widespread nurse understaffing which
means unnecessary patient deaths, it means an
increase in medical errors, and it means nurses
leaving the field a lot faster than they have
in the past.
Hospital leaders blame a severe national nursing
shortage -- not intentional understaffing -- for
the stresses being felt by patients and nurses
across the country. Hospitals currently have 150,000
vacant, budgeted positions available for nurses
that they cannot fill, according to the American
Hospital Association.
Fifty-nine percent of survey participants said
understaffing is having a negative impact on the
quality of care patients receive. One in four
believe the frequency of medical errors due to
understaffing is a serious problem.
A study reported last October in the Journal of
the American Medical Association found a strong
connection between higher patient-to-nurse ratios
and increased risk of patient death. Specifically,
the study found that each additional patient in
an average nurse's workload -- after 4 patients
-- increased the risk of death in surgical patients
by 7 percent.
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