Hospitals are under pressure to keep control of their bottom lines, and nurses account for a large part of their budgets. But a recent study published in the Health Affairs medical journal found hiring more nurses could actually save a hospital money in the long run. The study found 6,700 patient deaths and four million days of hospital care could be avoided each year by increasing staff of registered nurses.
However, training new nurses is the problem. Last year, nursing schools had to turn away 125,000 applicants because they didn't have enough faculty to teach them. Many nursing professors are retiring just when they're needed most.
"Today, we have a cruel and unfortunate development, said Buerhaus, who co-authored the Health Affairs study. "Our current workforce will get older and older and retire in large numbers in the next decade just as we see the aging of baby boomers, all 80 million of them, beginning to turn 65 and consuming more health care."
To make matters worse, patients in hospitals today are sicker than 20 years ago. In the past, a nurse could take care of more patients because some of them were recovering from minor operations. But now, with so many outpatient procedures, an overnight hospital stay is a rarity.
"We have a much higher acuity level patient who requires a lot more nursing care and we have less nurses to provide that care," said Dr. Timothy Babineau, the chief medical officer at the University of Maryland's Medical Center.
We all know that our nurses are in short supply. It's nice to see some media attention on the issue.
See the list of Magnet nurses, by hospital here.
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