Infectious diseases increase nurse workloads

A survey of 150 New York City nurses found that the presence of infectious diseases, even those that are relatively easy to treat, can add substantially to nurses’ workloads. Almost half of the nurses surveyed reported that their workloads increased by more than an hour when treating lice, scabies or influenza. Clostridium difficile created the same time burden for 76% of nurses surveyed. Nurses reported that they most frequently devoted the additional time to isolation precautions, patient and family education and staffing changes. Another 228 infection preventionists took the survey. They also reported time burdens associated with infectious diseases. (Journal of Infection Control article, 6/2019)