This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Nurse staffing, burnout linked to health care-associated infections
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Nurse burnout leads to higher health care-associated infection rates and costs hospitals millions of additional dollars annually, according to a study published in the American Journal of Infection Control.
“Health care facilities can improve nurse staffing and other elements of the care environment and alleviate job-related burnout in nurses at a much lower cost than those associated with health care-associated infections,” the authors wrote. “By reducing nurse burnout, we can improve the well-being of nurses while improving the quality of patient care.”
Researchers analyzed data collected by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, the American Hospital Association Annual Survey and a 2006 survey of more than 7,000 registered nurses from 161 hospitals across Pennsylvania, looking for the impact of nurse staffing and burnout on incidence rates of catheter-associated urinary tract infections (UTIs) and surgical site infection (SSI).
Comparing UTI rates with nurses’ patient loads (5.7 patients on average), the researchers noted roughly one additional infection per 1,000 patients. Each 10% increase in a hospitals high-burnout nurses corresponded with nearly one additional UTI and two additional SSIs per 1,000 patients annually, according to an Associations for Professionals in Infection Control news release.
Using per-patient average costs associated with UTIs and SSIs, the researchers estimated if nurse burnout rates were reduced to 10% from an average of 30%, hospitals in Pennsylvania could prevent an estimated 4,160 infections annually with an associated savings of $41 million.
“Hospitals in which burnout was reduced by 30% had a total of 6,239 fewer infections, for an annual cost saving of up to $68 million,” the authors wrote.
Reference:
Cimiotti JP, Aiken LH, Sloane DM, Wu ES. Nurse staffing, burnout and health care-associated infection. Am J Infect Control. 2012. doi: 10.1016/j.ajic.2012.02.029
