LOS ANGELES—Los Angeles County will add about 200 registered nurses (RN) to the Department of Health Services to achieve staffing standards as California struggles with a nursing shortage. The Los Angeles Board of Supervisors voted Dec. 21 to approve a motion to help hospitals within the county reach the state’s “nurse-to-patient ratio”—at least one nurse for every two patients—for adult critical care units, according to the department’s Dec. 21 letter to the board. The board also approved adding roughly $11 million to the department’s budget for salaries and benefits for nurses in the current fiscal year, though the department did not specify how the added funds would be used. The department will also reallocate about $9 million from its Enterprise Fund, a fund to provide grants to healthcare initiatives, to instead fund the staffing costs and operational changes needed during the hiring process. This comes as a 2020 study by …