• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

Long hours worked by hospital staff nurses can negatively impact patient safety

Patient Safety Monitor Alert, July 12, 2004

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Patient Safety Monitor Alert!

Long hours worked by hospital staff nurses can negatively impact patient safety, according to a new study.

Dr. Ann Rogers, a nursing professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and researchers studied the work habits of 393 hospital staff nurses. Those who worked more than 12.5 consecutive hours were three times more likely to make an error than nurses who worked shorter hours. Working overtime at the end of a shift also increased the risk of making an error.

The researchers gave nurses logbooks to track their hours, overtime, days off, and sleep/wake patterns for 28 days. They also asked participants to describe errors or near-misses that might have occurred during their shifts.

Participants reported 199 errors and 213 near-misses during the data-gathering period. More than half of the errors (58%) involved medication administration. Other blunders included procedural errors (18%), charting errors (12%), and transcription errors (7%).

The researchers found that most hospital nurses work 12-hour, 16-hour, or even 20-hour shifts and are rarely able to leave the hospital at the end of their scheduled shift. All participants reported working overtime at least once during the data-gathering period, and one-third of the nurses reported working overtime every day they worked.

"We need to educate nurses and hospitals about fatigue," says Dr. Linda Scott, a study co-author and nursing professor at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, MI. "It's a shared responsibility and both parties are accountable. This is a national problem and will likely have a national effect." The study will be published in the July/August issue of Health Affairs.

Flashback: The Institute of Medicine (IOM) concluded in a report released in November 2003 that nurses are hampered by fatigue, inefficient work processes, intimidating and unsupportive leaders, and organizational cultures of blame.

The IOM report, "Keeping Patients Safe: Transforming the Work Environment of Nurses," found that changing nurse work environments will require "bundles" of change at all levels of a health care organization.

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Patient Safety Monitor Alert!

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive