President and CEO, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs, another lousy golfer, terrible cook, friction fixer
Reducing the proportion of RNs in hospitals, even when total nursing personnel hours are kept the same, is likely to result in significant avoidable patient deaths, readmissions, longer lengths of stay, and decreased patient satisfaction, in addition to excess Medicare costs and forgone cost savings to hospitals. Estimates represent only a 10 percentage-point dilution in skill mix; however, the team nursing model includes much larger reductions of 40–50 percentage-points—the human and economic consequences of which could be substantial.
