Dive Brief:
- A new study by API Healthcare has concluded that most older Americans worry about how the ACA might affect hospital patient care and staffing quality.
- The study, which surveyed 1,700 U.S. adults, found that 82% of Americans aged 30 and older believe nurses are spread too thin, and 69% said they were concerned that millions of new patients entering the system would lower care quality.
- Other stats included that 40% of respondents reported personally seeing interior quality care from hospital nursing staff, and that 75% said they consider hospital nurse quality a more pressing concern than availability of their EMR.
Dive Insight:
Rightly or wrongly, the public seems worried that the ACA will take a bad situation -- overloaded nurses working in understaffed hospitals -- and make it worse. It's too soon to tell whether their fears are on target, but it's understandable that people are wondering if pumping more patients into an overloaded system will have a negative effect. Realistically, though, it will be several months, if not years, before we have more visibility into this issue. The public is going to have to wait and see what the ACA brings, just like the hospitals themselves.