Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Apr 20;21(1):30.
doi: 10.1186/s12960-023-00817-5.

The association between multi-disciplinary staffing levels and mortality in acute hospitals: a systematic review

Chiara Dall'Ora  1   2 , Bruna Rubbo  3 , Christina Saville  3 , Lesley Turner  3 , Jane Ball  3   4 , Cheska Ball  4   5 , Peter Griffiths  3   4
Affiliations

The association between multi-disciplinary staffing levels and mortality in acute hospitals: a systematic review

Chiara Dall'Ora et al. Hum Resour Health. .

Abstract

Objectives: Health systems worldwide are faced with the challenge of adequately staffing their hospital services. Much of the current research and subsequent policy has been focusing on nurse staffing and minimum ratios to ensure quality and safety of patient care. Nonetheless, nurses are not the only profession who interact with patients, and, therefore, not the only professional group who has the potential to influence the outcomes of patients while in hospital. We aimed to synthesise the evidence on the relationship between multi-disciplinary staffing levels in hospital including nursing, medical and allied health professionals and the risk of death.

Methods: Systematic review. We searched Embase, Medline, CINAHL, and the Cochrane Library for quantitative or mixed methods studies with a quantitative component exploring the association between multi-disciplinary hospital staffing levels and mortality.

Results: We included 12 studies. Hospitals with more physicians and registered nurses had lower mortality rates. Higher levels of nursing assistants were associated with higher patient mortality. Only two studies included other health professionals, providing scant evidence about their effect.

Conclusions: Pathways for allied health professionals such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dietitians, pharmacists, to impact safety and other patient outcomes are plausible and should be explored in future studies.

Keywords: Hospital mortality; Staffing; Workforce.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
PRISMA flow diagram. From: Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, Boutron I, Hoffmann TC, Mulrow CD, et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ 2021;372:n71. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n71. For more information, visit: http://www.prisma-statement.org/
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Buchan J, Gershlick B, Charlesworth A, Seccombe I. Falling short: the NHS workforce challenge. The Health Foundation. 2019.
    1. Rocks S, Boccarini G, Charlesworth A, Idriss O, McConkey R, Rachet-Jacquet L. Health and social care funding projections. 2021. The Health Foundation; 2021.
    1. World Health Organization. Global strategy on human resources for health: workforce 2030. 2016.
    1. World Health Organization . The 2022 update. Geneva: Global Health Workforce Statistics; 2022.
    1. Kane RL, Shamliyan TA, Mueller C, Duval S, Wilt TJ. The association of registered nurse staffing levels and patient outcomes: systematic review and meta-analysis. Med Care. 2007;45(12):1195–1204. doi: 10.1097/MLR.0b013e3181468ca3. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources