Health Affairs March 31, 2020
Joanne Spetz

Recent analyses have raised concerns about whether the United States has enough hospital capacity for a surge of patients needing care for COVID-19 infections. But even if we can double or triple the number of intensive care unit (ICU) beds, we don’t have enough nurses to staff them. As shown in exhibit 1, 3.3 million of the 4.0 million registered nurses (RNs) in the US are employed in nursing, and nearly 60 percent work in hospitals. About 15 percent of hospital-employed RNs, or nearly 290,000 nurses, work in critical care units—including adult, pediatric, and neonatal care. Doubling the number of ICU beds would outstrip the RN workforce trained in intensive care. How can we mobilize enough nurses to take care...

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