Prof. Linda Aiken has long beena first-rate scholar on nurse staffing rates and their impact on patient safetyand patient mortality. Prof. Aiken’slist of credits is a mile long, including her Registered Nursing degree.
Once again, Prof. Aiken has found acritical link between nurse staffing and patient outcomes – this time inEurope. From her paper in TheLancet,
Anincrease in a nurses’ workload by one patient increased the likelihood of aninpatient dying within 30 days of admission by 7% (odds ratio 1·068, 95% CI1·031—1·106), and every 10% increase in bachelor’s degree nurses was associatedwith a decrease in this likelihood by 7% (0·929, 0·886—0·973). These associationsimply that patients in hospitals in which 60% of nurses had bachelor’s degreesand nurses cared for an average of six patients would have almost 30% lowermortality than patients in hospitals in which only 30% of nurses had bachelor’sdegrees and nurses cared for an average of eight patients.
The Irish have picked up on thestudy. The Irish Examiner reports that the Irish Nurses and Midwives’Organisation has asked the Irish Government to allow nurse recruitment. The INMOcites Prof. Aiken’s research in their demand.
Will Americafollow suit? Hopefully. This research is not novel orgroundbreaking. Here is a 2010 MU Law blogpost, citing yet another study by Prof. Aiken.