News: Workforce shortages listed as top patient safety concern in 2022

CDI Strategies - Volume 16, Issue 11

While what’s been dubbed as the “great resignation” continues throughout various industries, staffing shortages in healthcare, however, equates to potential risks for patients, according to ECRI, an independent, nonprofit organization, report listing the top 10 safety concerns of 2022.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a persistent shortage of clinical and nonclinical staff across the continuum, the report states. Staffing shortages have continued to increase throughout the pandemic, pushing workforce shortages to the top of ECRI’s list.

At the number two spot, ECRI listed healthcare workers mental health linked to COVID-19. “An often discussed but inadequately addressed collateral result of the COVID-19 pandemic is the toll it has taken on the mental health of healthcare workers,” the report states. “Healthcare professionals' mental health was already at crisis level before the COVID-19 pandemic; both physicians and nurses were at risk of burnout, emotional exhaustion, or depression prior to 2020. The pandemic has now forced a reckoning with healthcare workers' mental health needs.”

Bias and racism in addressing patient safety came it at ECRI’s number three concern, according to the report. While racial and ethnic disparities have gained notice across a wide variety of concerns—from employment to housing to education, and even general access to healthcare—less well know is how these issues also play into adverse events response and reporting.

“Although patients from racial and ethnic minority groups are more likely to experience an adverse event while in the hospital, providers are significantly less likely to report harmful events for patients from minority groups than for white patients. In one study, the odds of reporting patient safety events in African American patients were only 0.65 times the odds of reporting in white patients,” the report states.

Additional items on the ECRI list included:

  • Vaccine coverage gaps and errors
  • Cognitive biases and diagnostic error
  • Non-ventilator healthcare-associated pneumonia
  • Human factors in operationalizing telehealth
  • International supply chain disruptions
  • Products subject to emergency use authorization
  • Telemetry monitoring

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by  HealthLeaders.

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