Staffing shortages are the top patient safety issue on ECRI's 2022 list of safety concerns, released on March 14.
Besides the pandemic-related stress that has induced some nurses and doctors to leave their jobs, the nonprofit safety watchdog notes that a high proportion of nurses are at or near traditional retirement age. The median age of registered nurses in 2020 was 52 years.
Nursing schools are unlikely to be able to supply enough nurses to replace those retiring, the report states. ECRI notes that 80,000 qualified nursing school applicants were turned away in 2019 because of insufficient resources.
Physicians are also in short supply, and the situation is expected to grow worse, the report says.
Marcus Schabacker, MD, PhD, president and CEO of ECRI, told Medscape Medical News that the pandemic has aggravated staff shortages because it has led to a "a significant exit of healthcare professionals out of their professions."
Traveling nurses are not a solution to this safety concern, he says, because these nurses "don't know the facilities, their colleagues, or their equipment. We're concerned that traveling nurses are not appropriately trained and certified on using the equipment in these hospitals."
Also noted in the report as a patient safety concern was the mental health of frontline healthcare workers.
