Intelligence Unit
Special Reports
Special Events
Subscribe
Sponsored
Departments
- Leadership
- Finance
- Technology
- Physicians
- Community Hospitals
- Health Plans
- Marketing
- Quality
- Nursing
- HR
Follow Us
Hospital Infections Linked to Burned Out Nurses
Hospitals where higher numbers of nurses report burn out, as measured by the Maslach survey, also had higher rates of surgical site and urinary tract infections than hospitals with fewer burned out nurses, according to a report in the American Journal of Infection Control.
"When nurses feel high levels of burnout, they emotionally, psychologically, or cognitively detach from their work and from their patients," and lapses in infection control occur, said lead author Jeannie P. Cimiotti, of the New Jersey Collaborating Center for Nursing at Rutgers University.
The survey found that hospitals where nurses reported 30% lower levels of burnout had 6,329 fewer surgical site and catheter-associated urinary tract infections, which researchers estimated saved those hospitals $68 million a year.
- $6.4B Henry Ford, Beaumont Merger Failed on Cultural Hurdles
- Don't Let Nurses Sink Your Bottom Line
- Hospitals Profit On Bloodstream Infections
- Fortunately, Angelina Jolie Isn't On Medicare
- Less Blood Testing for Some Surgeries Safe, Cost Effective
- How Chargemaster Data May Affect Hospital Revenue
- Lower ED Margins Demand a Better Strategy
- Primary Care Docs Average More Hospital Revenue Than Specialists
- House Lawmakers Grill CMS Over Health Exchange Navigators
- ED Physicians Key to Half of Hospital Admissions
Comments are moderated. Please be patient.
Karen Jensen RN,BSN,CCM (8/6/2012 at 8:33 AM)
I agree with Fran. There are many time demands on nurse's and the hospital administrators and nursing supervisors or "house supervisors" who are in charge of assigning staff ratio's need to consider that when a nurse is on the floor and she is having too many patient's assigned at once and doctor's calling and patient's needing to go off the floor for procedures and discharges all at once, it is rush rush rush to wash hands and be diligent when the nurse always has a sense of urgency. So, they may not have time to SING HAPPY BIRTHDAY while they wash their hands. The way to allow nurse's time to use proper sanitizer's and SING A FULL HAPPY BIRTHDAY SONG and it is recommended twice in the lab setting when training on how to wash hands, but some peopele recommend a full happy birthday song. That just isn't reasonable with all of the time demands so administrator's and nursing supervisor's need to realize that by having more available nurse's may cost a few extra dollars that month the savings as the article points out that 68 million dollars a year is possible to save. So people in admin deciding on nurse to patient ratio need to keep that in mind when staffing. Go back to hiring a float nurse from another floor or agency staff if you don't have enough nurse's to care for you census. Sometimes other floors are not as busy as others and a smart house supervisor will go to a nurse who doesn't have a busy floor and ask if she can spare a nurse on another floor. It is a help just to do basic things if you are not a regular on that floor. That will give nurse's a free hand which translates to more time to wash their hands properly therby preventing infections.
Fran Dillon RN (8/2/2012 at 2:03 PM)
Could it also be that the reason the nurses are burnt out is that they don't have time to contribute to infection control issues?