Hospital Short-Staffing is Harming Patients in Washington
Nearly half of healthcare workers report patient harm or death due to short-staffing; Dept. of Health data corroborate significant increase in preventable safety events
SEATTLE – The statewide hospital staffing crisis, which healthcare workers have called on legislators to address with safe staffing standards (Senate Bill 5236), has also put patient safety at risk.
In polling released last week, conducted among 1,200 healthcare worker members of UFCW 3000, SEIU Healthcare 1199NW and the Washington State Nurses Association, 48% of healthcare workers report that in the past year their hospital experienced a sentinel event or adverse health event, meaning a patient safety event that could have been avoided and caused serious harm or death, that they believe was due to short-staffing.
Now, newly acquired data on preventable adverse patient safety events collected by the Washington Department of Health corroborate the reported experiences of healthcare workers. According to the data, through Q3 2022 preventable serious adverse events reported to DOH were on pace to increase by 61.6% from 2019 through 2022. Serious patient pressure ulcers acquired after admission were on pace to increase by 98.1%, while patient falls resulting in death or serious injury were on pace to increase by 42.9%.
It’s important to note that while 48% of healthcare workers report patient harm or death within their hospitals in the last year that they believe was due to short-staffing, many of these events may not be captured in the data hospitals are reporting to DOH. However, the increase in the DOH data supports what healthcare workers say is happening within hospitals.
Safe staffing standards, like those proposed in SB 5236, are proven by decades of data to improve safety for patients. Exhaustive real-world results show higher nurse staffing levels are directly associated with lower patient mortality and failure to rescue rates, fewer adverse patient events, and shorter lengths of stay.
