Medical Care
Nurse Staffing and Emergency Department Crowding
By Kathryn Jane Muir, Linda H. Aiken, Karen B. Lasater and 2 others.
Abstract
Background
The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between nurse staffing inadequacy in the emergency department (ED) and inpatient units on objective ED crowding measures.
Methods
Three datasets from 2024 were linked: the Penn Nurses4All survey, CMS Hospital Compare, and the AHA Annual Hospital Survey. Nurses4All provided measures of nurse staffing inadequacy. The proportion of nurses reporting staffing inadequacy was the main exposure variable. Crowding measures included the percentage of patients who left the ED without being seen and patient length of stay (in minutes) for patients with and without psychiatric/mental health presentations. The analysis included hospital-level regression models adjusted for hospital characteristics.
