Half of Washington healthcare workers likely to quit, poll finds

Photo: Dean Mitchell/Getty Images

The hospital staffing crisis in Washington could push the state's healthcare infrastructure to the brink without the passage of safe staffing standards to help reduce burnout and improve workplace safety, finds a new poll conducted by the WA Safe + Healthy Coalition.

In the poll about 75,000 healthcare workers in Washington, 49% said they are "likely to leave the healthcare profession in the next few years." Among those who said they were likely to leave, 68% said short-staffing was one of their primary reasons.

Additionally, a staggering 79% of healthcare workers said they were burned out, and nearly half (45%) said they feel unsafe at their job in healthcare.

WHAT'S THE IMPACT

This is the second year burned out and overwhelmed healthcare workers have asked Washington legislators to step in and pass safe staffing standards – this year proposed in Senate Bill 5236. 

The legislature would create nurse-to-patient ratios, requiring a cap on the number of patients a hospital nurse could care for at any given time.

Other states and organizations are also calling for nursing ratios. 

California and Massachusetts have laws about nurse-to-patient ratios in hospitals, according to NurseJournal and other states are considering legislation.

LeadingAge has sent a letter to Congressional leadership urging them to consider legislation on the issue of nursing home staffing ratios.

Safe staffing standards would protect any one healthcare worker from being assigned too many patients at a time, and would make sure hospital executives hire enough staff to ensure worker and patient safety, according to the coalition poll. By reducing burnout and making working conditions safer, healthcare workers say safe staffing standards will address the staffing crisis.

Anecdotally, many who responded to the poll said the crisis is not due primarily to a shortage of healthcare workers as hospital executives have maintained. Rather, they say, it's due to mismanagement and subpar working conditions.

Washington Department of Health data shows there are approximately 16,000 actively licensed nurses in Washington not currently working in nursing. While WA Safe + Healthy coalition partners support increasing workforce development investments like hospitals have called for, executives' claims that graduating more workers will address the staffing crisis are a red herring, pollsters maintained.

"Healthcare workers are leaving the bedside at an alarming rate because of unmanageable and unsafe staffing conditions, not because they've changed their minds about working in healthcare," said Erin Allison, an ER nurse at St. Joseph Bellingham.

THE LARGER TREND

In the "Nurse Salary Research Report" released last year, 29% of nurses said they were considering leaving the profession, a steep rise from the 11% who were considering such a move in the 2020 survey.

Higher pay and dissatisfaction with management were also key drivers of nurses changing work settings in 2020 or 2021, with 28% saying they've changed settings. The percentage of nurses considering changing employers increased to 17% in 2021 from 11% in 2020, while the percentage of nurses who are passive job seekers – not actively looking for a new job but open to new opportunities – also increased, from 38% in 2020 to 47% in the most recent survey.
 

Twitter: @JELagasse
Email the writer: Jeff.Lagasse@himssmedia.com