Variability of staffing and staff mix across acute care units in Alberta, Canada

Sharma, Krishna; Hastings, Stephanie E.; Suter, Esther; Bloom, Judy

doi:10.1186/s12960-016-0172-1

Human Resources for Health

Table 1 Staffing levels and staff mixes by quintiles across major unit types

From: Variability of staffing and staff mix across acute care units in Alberta, Canada

		Urban medical units (n = 62)							Urban surgical units (n = 36)						Rural units (n = 59)
		1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	p value		1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	p value	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	p value
Ranked by RN quintile	RN	1.1	2.0 ^†	2.4 ^‡	2.9 ^‡	7.2 ^§	0.00		1.7	2.1	2.5	2.9 ^†	5.1 ^§	0.00	1.1	2.1	2.4	3.2	9.6 ^§	0.01
	LPN	1.3	1.1	1.1	1.0	1.3			0.9	1.5	1.2	1.0	0.9		1.3	1.6	1.6	1.9	4.4
	HCA	1.0	0.9	0.6	0.9	0.3			0.9	0.6	0.6	0.8	0.8		0.4	0.2	0.2	0.5	2.1
	AH	0.4	0.5	0.4	0.4	3.7			1.1	0.4	0.2	0.2	0.7		0.5	0.7	0.9	0.9	4.2
	Total	3.8	4.5	4.5	5.2	12.5			4.6	4.6	4.5	4.9	7.5		3.3	4.6	5.1	6.5	20.3
Ranked by LPN quintile	RN	3.6	2.3	2.1	2.2	3.0			3.6	3.0	3.1	2.4	3.6		13.8	2.6	2.1	2.0	5.1
	LPN	0.4	1.0 ^§	1.3 ^§	1.6 ^§	2.8 ^§	0.00		0.5	1.0 ^§	1.3 ^§	1.6 ^§	2.9 ^§	0.00	0.4	1.0	1.3	1.6	3.9 ^‡	0.00
	HCA	0.9	0.8	0.9	1.1	0.4			1.0	0.7	0.5	0.6	0.3		0.5	0.2	0.4	0.4	1.5
	AH	1.8	0.5	0.5	0.4	0.6			0.3	0.6	0.3	0.2	0.2		2.1	0.6	0.7	0.8	2.9
	Total	6.7	4.6	4.8	5.3	6.8			5.4	5.3	5.2	4.8	7		16.8	4.4	4.5	4.8	13.4
Ranked by HCA quintile	RN	5.3	1.9	2.3	2.3	1.8			3.0	2.6	3.2	2.8	3.7		5.1	1.7	2.6	3.2	4.8
	LPN	1.7	1.3	1.2	1.0	1.1			1.7	1.4	1.2	0.7	0.9		2.7	1.2	1.2	1.2	3.5
	HCA	0.0	0.3 ^‡	0.6 ^§	1.0 ^§	1.5 ^§	0.00		0.0	0.3 ^†	0.6 ^§	1.0 ^§	1.4 ^§	0.00	0.0	0.2	0.5	1.0	4.1 ^§	0.00
	AH	2.8	0.4	0.5	0.5	0.5			0.3	0.0	0.3	0.5	0.4		2.2	0.6	0.8	0.3	1.6
	Total	9.8	3.9	4.6	4.8	4.9			5	4.3	5.3	5	6.4		10	3.7	5.1	5.7	14
Ranked by AH quintile	RN	2.0	2.1	2.0	2.3	6.7			2.5	3.2	3.6	2.4	4.0		2.8	1.8	2.9	2.6	6.9
	LPN	1.2	1.1	0.8	1.6	0.9			1.2	1.3	0.7	1.4	0.8		2.3	1.2	1.9	1.9	3.2
	HCA	0.7	0.9	1.2	0.8	0.5			0.6	0.8	0.8	0.0	0.9		0.5	0.3	0.4	0.2	1.7
	AH	0.0	0.3	0.4	0.7	4.3 ^§		0.00	0.0	0.2 ^§	0.4 ^§	0.6 ^§	1.4 ^§	0.00	0.0	0.3	0.4	0.8	3.9	0.20
	Total	3.9	4.4	4.4	5.4	12.4			4.3	5.5	5.5	4.4	7.1		5.6	3.6	5.6	5.5	15.7

All statistics are FTEs per 100 patient days
Italicized rows are the focal provider in each analysis
^†p value <0.05; ^‡p value <0.01; and ^§p value <0.001 in comparison with 1st quintile

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ISSN: 1478-4491

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