Insufficient nurse staffing in an intensive care unit (ICU) can cause patients undergoing high-risk surgery to have postoperative complications, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions have found.
In the October Effective Clinical Practice, the researchers reported that while an optimal nurse-patient ratio remains to be determined, ICUs having ratios of one nurse for every three or four patients, rather than one nurse for one or two patients, have significantly higher rates of postsurgical complications.
They said that 47% of patients treated in hospitals with fewer ICU nurses (nurse-patient ratio of 1:3 or 1:4) and 34% treated in hospitals with more ICU nurses (nurse-patient ratio of 1:1 or 1:2) had at least one complication. Patients treated in hospitals with fewer ICU nurses were more likely to have medical complications (43% vs 28%) or respiratory failure (21% vs 13%) or need a breathing tube reinserted (21% vs 13%). Nurse staffing . . . [Full Text of this Article]
