Question

Many researchers have shown that expansion of Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act led to increases in insurance coverage and healthcare utilization in states that decided to expand Medicaid. Suppose this increase in healthcare utilization led to nurses working more hours per week. Explain the trade-off between working more/longer hours and patient health. Would you expect this increase in nurses' hours worked to affect patients' health outcomes? Would you expect the effect on patients' health to be different if hours increased due to some nurses moving from part-time (<35 hours/week) to full-time (>= 35 hours per week) or due to full-time nurses taking more overtime (>40 hours/week)? Explain. (8 points)

Answer 1

There may be negative trade off between working more and patient health. As nurses who worked more may have burnout, fatigue that increases the risk of committing errors while providing patient care.
there will be effect on patient health outcomes in terms of long hospital stay, readmission , increase in infection rate or may be on mortality rate of hospitals.

yes there may difference in effect on patient health if nurses working part time to full time but that transition should be voluntary. As nurses working overtime under compulsion may cause high risk of burnout rather voluntary move to fulltime and the nurses who already working overtime , if they take overtime then there may have increase in working and procedural errors among them . That may affect adversely on patient health outcome. But there may not be less chances of negative patient outcomes if part time nurses work fulltime.