Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Low ICU staffing levels increase the risk of ventilator associated pneumonia

The study was just reported in Critical Care. It’s always been intuitive to doctors and nurses that staffing ratios affect patient outcomes. Now with this study, alongside another one showing a mortality hazard associated with low nurse to patient ratios, evidence is being marshaled to back up our intuition. This evidence also favors the judicious use of ambulance diversion despite the Institute of Medicine’s silly mandate from last year.

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