Cutting costs means cutting staff and, too often, cutting corners on patient care. As serious a problem as understaffing has been in the past, in today's intensely competitive, high-pressure healthcare industry it has become worse.

In the past few years, staffing practices have increased the probability that patients will not receive an adequate level of care. Late or missed doses of medication or painkillers, delayed meals, responses to medication or vital signs monitored in a rushed fashion, hurried lab tests, too few staff to properly clean rooms: All of these, and more, have been reported by healthcare workers.

A growing body of research underscores the importance of adequate staff. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that preventable hospital deaths increase when nurses are assigned more than four patients, yet many nurses report caring for as many as 15 or 20 patients at a time. In a national AFT Healthcare survey, nurses said that while they believed they could safely care for as many as five patients, the average number of patients they were assigned was eight.

Poor staffing levels do not only lead to worse patient care. Direct-care workers such as registered nurses, LPNs, CNAs and transport staff suffer from greater incidence of occupational injuries such as back problems, needlesticks and joint problems when staffing levels are too low. Healthcare workers also experience high levels of work-related stress, low morale and family problems.

Staffing practices are also driving the exodus of nurses and health professionals from hospitals and other facilities and leading to critical shortages in almost all health professions. In a 2001 AFT Healthcare survey, 20 percent of nurses said they planned to leave their jobs within the next few years, largely because of the stress resulting from understaffing. Respiratory therapists, X-ray technicians and certified nurse assistants reported similar concerns in a later survey.

AFT Healthcare has been in the forefront of the labor movement in helping affiliates combat staffing problems. Below you will find some of the resources, studies and tools we have developed.