Staffing Ratios and Registered Nurse Workload

August 2012

Some important facts about staffing ratios and Registered Nurse workload:

--Each patient added to RNs’ workload associated with a 7% increase in mortality following common surgeries. (Aiken et al, 2002, Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing)

--Safe staffing means fewer RNs miss changes in patient conditions because of their workload (Aiken et all 2010.)

--Increasing staffing by one RN per patient day resulted in lower rates of hospital-acquired pneumonia, respiratory failure and cardiac arrest in ICUs. Patients’ length of stay was also shorter by 34% in ICUS and 31% in surgical units. (Medical Care, December 20117, Robert Kane, MD et al, University of Minnesota School of Public Health).

--For every extra patient added to a nurse’s workload, there was roughly one additional hospital-acquired infection logged per 1,000 patients. (Study published in the American Journal of Infection Control on July 30, 2012, Jeannie P. Cimiotti, Collaborating Center for Nursing at Rutgers University et al)

--For each 10% jump in proportion of nurses who logged high levels of burnout, there was roughly one additional catheter-associated urinary tract infection per 1,000 patients and almost an extra two surgical site infections per 1,000 patients. (Study published in the American Journal of Infection Control on July 30, 2012, Jeannie P. Cimiotti, Collaborating Center for Nursing at Rutgers University et al)

--“They’re associated with morbidity and mortality, no doubt about it,” Cimiotti said. “A bloodstream infection can kill someone.”

--A 2002 study found that adding a single patient to a nurse’s caseload increased the risk of dying within a week by 7 percent. Boosting the load from six patients to eight increased the risk by 31 percent over a nurse caring for four patients. (Aiken et al 2002)