Estimating the Relationship Between Nurse Staffing and Medication Pass Workload Using National Barcode Data.

As unit-level nurse staffing increased, average RN workload decreased. This result suggests that interventions to improve nurse staffing may have larger non-linear effects for units with lower staffing levels. Understanding the effect of differing staffing decisions on variations in nursing workload is critical for adopting models of care that effectively use scarce staffing resources and contribute to retaining nurses in the inpatient workforce. This work provides evidence that peak time medication pass duration is a valid process-based measure of workload and highlights the potential diminishing returns to increasing staffing.