Safe Staffing in Health Care Saves Lives and Money

Nursing worldwide calls for legislators and policy makers to address the need for sufficient and suitable human resources in health care settings

Geneva, 12 May 2006 - Inadequate staffing in health care settings is reaching crisis proportions in all regions.  Evidence indicates that this is resulting in a critical increase in length of hospital stays, patient morbidity and mortality and preventable adverse events.  One study found that raising a nurse’s workload from four surgical patients to six resulted in a 14% increase in likelihood of a patient within that nurse’s care dying within 30 days of admission. ¹  The reality is that many nurses are challenged with much greater patient workloads on a daily basis. On the occasion of International Nurses Day, nurses everywhere are calling for a policy framework to ensure serious attention is given to comprehensive health human resource planning and an adequate nurse-to-patient staffing ratio in all healthcare settings.

There is no doubt. Numbers of health care workers make a difference.  “The evidence is in: an adequate nursing supply is essential to the health outcomes of nations. Improved nurse staffing (in numbers and skill-mix) is associated with lower inpatient mortality rates and shorter hospital stays – saving both lives and money,” stated Hiroko Minami, President of the International Council of Nurses (ICN).  “Safe staffing leads to lower incidences of medication errors, post-intervention urinary tract infections, upper gastrointestinal bleeding, falls, pneumonia and shock.  The global nursing shortage experienced today clearly threatens reaching the Millennium Development Goals.”

High patient-to-nurse ratios not only have a negative impact on patient outcomes but also affect the nurses who are at higher risk of emotional exhaustion, stress, job dissatisfaction and burnout.  Nurses who continuously work overtime or work without adequate backup are prone to greater absenteeism and poorer health, thus weakening health system responses to communities’ health needs.

Health care environments vary worldwide, but the need for adequate staff is shared.  This need goes beyond the minimum required for potential sub standard care.  Nurses, their nursing associations and health sector stakeholders are being challenged to determine safe staffing levels in the context of patient requirements, collect relevant clinical and workforce data, disseminate and demonstrate the importance of safe staffing, form alliances to support safe staffing policies, undertake impact assessment studies, and prepare a communication plan that effectively influences decision-making.

To help nurses, hospital administrators, government and the public in general to understand this complex and critical subject, ICN has prepared a toolkit on safe staffing, Safe Staffing Saves Lives, which is available on the ICN website http://www.icn.ch/indkit.htm.

 ¹ Aiken L, Clarke S, Sloane D, Sochalski J & Silber J (2002). Hospital Nurse Staffing and Patient Mortality, Nurse Burnout, and Job Dissatisfaction, JAMA. 288: 1987-1993

For further information contact Linda Carrier-Walker Tel : (+41 22) 908 0100; fax : (+41 22) 908 0101; email: Web site http://www.icn.ch

ICN/PR06 #9