Healthcare Finance News August 18, 2020
Staffing ratios varied from three to 10 patients for each nurse on general adult medical and surgical units.
Many hospitals in New York and Illinois were understaffed right before the first surge of critically ill COVID-19 patients, while New York City — an international gateway to the U.S. with three major international airports, and the early epicenter of the coronavirus surge in the U.S. — had the poorest average hospital nurse staffing on the eve of the COVID-19 medical emergency.
That’s according to a BMJ Journal study, “Chronic Hospital Nurse Understaffing Meets COVID-19,” which found that the workload had adverse consequences on nurses and on patient care. One third of patients in New York state and Illinois hospitals did not...