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Staffing shortage harms patients at LA veterans hospital
Quality Improvement Monitor, June 2, 2005
The West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs hospital will hire more physicians for the ED after an internal task force determined inadequate staffing harmed patient safety and quality, the Los Angeles Times reported June 2.
"The increased workload, increased complexity of illnesses, and substandard ratio of attending physicians to trainees" harmed patients, the six-member task force appointed by the chief of medicine at the hospital concluded in April.
The hospital appointed an ED director and is in the process of hiring an additional staff physician to cover daytime hours, the Times reported. Two staff physicians currently work work in the ED during the day, the paper said.
The VA may also contract with certified ED physicians to work at night, the paper reported. Fill-in physicians currently work at night.
Many of the proposals will cost more than $1 million, according to the Times.
The ED treated 1,443 patients in the first quarter of the 2005 fiscal year, the paper said. In the same quarter last year, 1,019 received treatment.
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