When I was a resident, I always marvelled at how on nights and weekends, remarkably fewer people were “required” to take care of patients than on weekdays during work hours. Logic dictated that either people must be receiving substandard care on off hours, because there were fewer personnel, or else perhaps those extra people weren’t necessary. It is possible that neither of these things are true. It may be that the extra people help with a lot of care that happens during the day but isn’t necessary at night. If forced to consider that either substandard care or overstaffing is true, though, the former is a greater concern. It’s not good to be spending money on unnecessary staff, but if patients are receiving substandard care, that’s an issue that needs immediate fixing.
A recent study in JAMA Pediatrics looked into this for CPR for kids in hospitals. Go read more about it in my latest post over at the AcademyHealth blog.
