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07.14.05
In 5 Hours of Testimony, Hospital Administrators Continue to Refuse
any Limit on Patient Loads
Yesterday the Joint Committee on Public Health
heard more than 5 hours of testimony by nearly 20 panels regarding
the issue of
nurse staffing and its impact on patients. For more than 5 hours
hospital administrators continued to refuse to accept any limit
on the number of patients a nurse is forced to care for at one
time.
This refusal to accept any limit on the number of patients
a nurse is assigned at one time comes in the face of a new study
of registered
nurses in Massachusetts establishing once again that poor RN
staffing levels continue to cause significant harm. The survey,
conducted
by Opinion Dynamics Corporation, of RNs (nearly 70% of respondents
not members of the MNA), finds that fully 90% of RNs say patient
care is suffering due to understaffing, with devastating results
for patients:
77% report an increase in medication errors due to understaffing
(a 10% increase since 2003);68% report complications or other
problems for a patient (a 4% increase);
59% report readmission of patients due to understaffing (a 5% increase);
53% report injury or harm to patients; and 50% report that
poor staffing leads
to longer stays for patients. Most alarmingly, more than
1-in-3 nurses (34%) report
patient deaths directly attributable to having too many patients to care
for (an increase over the 29% reported by nurses in 2003);
According
to Chris Anderson, who directed the project, The same circular
dynamic we found in our 2003 survey is still
in full effect patient care
is suffering
because of understaffing, and more nurses are leaving the beside because
of understaffing. The RN survey found that 89% of RNs agree that nurses
are leaving
the profession
because they are burned out from high patient loads. Among nurses who
stopped working in an acute care setting, short staffing
is the number one reason
cited for leaving the bedside.
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