Wisconsin Nurses Among Most Overworked in U.S.: Study

There are fewer nurses per person in Wisconsin than just about anywhere in the U.S., in a study by Medicare Health Plans called“10 states with the most overworked doctors and nurses."

For every 1,000 people in Wisconsin, there are just 5.8 nurses, making the state the third highest for busy nurses in the United States, making state nurses among the most overworked in the U.S. according to the study.

To compile this report, Medicare Health Plans analysts looked at data from the US Census Bureau, FBI crime data, and the Kaiser Family Foundation. Then, they compared the doctor and nurse counts to the population data to get the number of professionals per 1,000 people.

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See Full Results of this study from Medicare Health Plans

Nurse to patient ratios vary widely - even in the U.S. For example, in Washington, DC, the physician-to-person ratio is more than 9.7 to 1,000, but in some states, the number of doctors drops to fewer than 2 for every 1,000, the study reported. The state ratios for nurses differ widely, too, ranging from 1.9 per 1,000 at the lowest to 21.3 per 1,000 at the highest.

The report estimates that the state will be lacking almost 20,000 nurses by the year 2035, which means current professionals may have an even heavier burden in the future.

“With so many people compared to the number of doctors and nurses, we can assume that these health
care professionals have a lot of work to do. What’s more, the numbers vary drastically from state to state.
In many areas, doctors and nurses are much more overworked than other,” said Medicare Health Plans
expert Joshua Adamson.

See the full list of rankings here:
https://www.medicarehealthplans.com/news/burned-out- is-your- state-full- of-overworked- doctors-and-
nurses/

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