So EXTRA doctors and nurses cause a death risk increase? Is that what the article really says.
Every extra doctor’s patient or nurse’s patient ups the risk 4 - 7%.
The article seems to contradict itself toward the very end.
One of the last sentences ends with:
“..higher levels of registered nurses per bed are associated with lower mortality.”
For every extra BED a physician is responsible dor the increase mortality is 4%. 7% for every extra BED a nurse is responsible for. This is where the hospital administrators who are no clinical are evil. They demand we doctors and their employees the nurses work more than safe or threaten their job or our contracts.
This would be like saying airline pilots are going to be pushed to be awake 30 hours and no relief. The headline is misleading however.
No, the article says that more real doctors and nurses decrease the death risk, but more “allied health professionals” increase it.
I was in the hospital a few months ago and the actual nurses and doctors were fine, but all sorts of other people...some “therapists,” some LPNs who seem to have more duties now, etc...came floating into the room and some of them couldn’t even draw blood correctly.
There’s a shortage of doctors and nurses, so they fill them in with these poorly trained “allied health professionals” who should have stuck with changing the bed linen.
One of the reasons there’s a shortage of doctors and nurses is that the government refers to them all as “health professionals.” A doctor I know said, “I’m a doctor. I didn’t study all those years, pass all those tests, and work like a dog to be called a ‘health care professional.’”
Partially it’s the insurance companies, but a lot of it is the federal government.