Navigating Staffing Shortages: How PSOs as Learning Systems can Reduce Risks

Staffing shortages pose a significant challenge to healthcare organizations. While the strain of caring for COVID-19 patients continues to decrease as the number of case drop, hospitals and health systems still face an unprecedented clinical staff shortages. Among greatest in demand are nurses, with approximately two-thirds of U.S. hospitals reporting a nurse vacancy rate of 7.5% or higher.

Learn how safety and nursing leaders can partner with a Patient Safety Organization (PSO) to gain insight and feedback from analysis of patient safety event data and root cause analysis findings. This insight can help them determine the greatest risks that staffing shortages (ECRI’s #1 patient safety concern for 2022) can create. In this webinar, experts for ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices PSO will discuss how organizations can apply shared lessons and best practices to improve delivery and coordination of care during these difficult times.

Learning objectives

During this informational webinar, speakers will discuss:

• The impact of staffing shortages on patient safety
• How a PSO learning system approach can support the integration of data and evidence into best practices for safety
• How a PSO can support safety leaders to implement solutions to prevent harm during staffing shortages

Register to view the recording

Sheila Rossi, MHA

Director, ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices PSO
Sheila has served the Patient Safety Organization since its inception in 2008. Her background is in healthcare administration with an emphasis on development and strategic planning. She has more than twenty-five years of experience in healthcare project management, patient safety, and risk management, hospital strategic planning, and hospital/physician insurance networks. She has been the project director on many patient safety, business development, and grant projects. She has worked closely with ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices PSO members on different initiatives to improve patient safety and quality nationally.

Shannon Davila, MSN, RN, CIC, CPHQ, FAPIC

Associate Director, ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices PSO
With a clinical background in adult critical care nursing, Shannon specializes in infection prevention and healthcare safety and quality improvement. Shannon has provided leadership throughout several state and national patient safety programs including the New Jersey Sepsis Learning Action Collaborative and CMS Hospital Improvement Innovation Network. She has authored a book and published several articles that focus on the importance of infection prevention. Shannon is certified in infection control, healthcare quality, as a TeamSTEPPS Master Trainer and High Reliability coach.