Hospital Staffing and Hospital Harm Trends Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, delivery of care was exceedingly difficult for hospital healthcare teams. This analysis presents a high-level look at the available pan-Canadian data on hospital staffing - including sick time, overtime and agency use - and potential impacts on patient harm in acute care hospitals. In 2021-2022, nurses and other healthcare providers working in hospital in-patient units across Canada logged significantly more overtime and sick-time hours compared with the previous year, equating to a shortfall of almost 14,000 full-time positions. Concurrently, the pan-Canadian rate of unintentional hospital harm increased to 6% compared with pre-pandemic numbers. The Hospital Harm Improvement Resource (HEC 2023a) links harm measurement and improvement efforts by providing evidence-informed practices to support patient safety improvement efforts.