Health-care workforce shortages starting to affect patient safety

"Years of progress reducing medical errors and preventable hospital-acquired infections were reversed in medical centers and skilled nursing facilities during the pandemic," Tina Reed reports for Axios. "But ongoing health care workforce disruptions — including early retirements, nurses shifting to travel positions and increased workloads for those who remain — threaten hospitals' ability to get back on track."

Several recent studies have outlined the trend. A recent study of two hospitals (one urban, one suburban) found a link between increased reliance on traveling nurses and increased infection rates. Rural hospitals often use travel nurses too. Another recent study, this one from the New England Journal of Medicine, found that the pandemic erased years of improvements in patient safety at hospitals and skilled nursing facilities, Reed reports. Staffing shortages and workers' mental health were the two biggest concerns for patient safety in 2022, according to a recent report by healthcare safety organization Emergency Care Research Institute.

A big part of the problem is that many older nurses retired earlier in the pandemic, taking with them important institutional knowledge and experience. Though travel nurses can fill critical staffing gaps, the constant moves disrupt employee dynamics. "You trust each other. You know each other. You're able to call each other out. You have the confidence to say when you think something is wrong, which is critical to safety in medical care," Michael Ramsey, CEO of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation, told Reed.

More than half of Americans in a recent poll said they've directly felt the effects of health-care worker shortages. Some hospitals are trying to retain staff by increasing pay and benefits, as well as addressing workforce concerns like a lack of personal protective equipment, Reed reports.