RN Shortage at Hospitals Sets Stage for More Medical Errors.

Waning numbers of competent registered nurses have doctors worried that the level of medical expertise in hospitals will eventually drop--leaving room for more medical errors.

Health organizations and witnesses at congressional hearings have projected a massive nursing shortage that they say will cripple hospitals and nursing homes in the next decade. A recent survey from the Health Resources and Services Administration found that the nation's RN supply has aged, and the rate of increase in nurses entering the profession has slowed over the past 4 years.

The Department of Health and Human Services predicts a 14% shortage of registered nurses nationwide by 2020.

What hasn't been as widely re ported is the specific impact of the shortage on doctors who work in hospitals.

"In southeastern Wisconsin where I work, it has been a problem since last June. Hospital emergency rooms are going on diversion because the hospital can't staff all of their beds," said Dr. Thomas James, a hospitalist in Milwaukee.

"We have had difficulty admitting patients urgently from our clinics. That's hardly appropriate since nowadays nearly all medical admissions are urgent and/or emergency admits and not elective," Dr. James said.

The nursing shortage "will affect all of us. The question is at what point and how," said Dr. Barbara Schuster, chair of internal medicine at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.