More Nurses=Fewer Deaths, Hospital Study Shows

[marmar]

from In These Times:



More Nurses=Fewer Deaths, Hospital Study Shows

Tuesday
April 20
10:46 am

By David Moberg


The new health insurance reform package took a few steps toward increasing access to insurance and controlling costs, argues National Nurses United spokesman Chuck Idelson, but it did little to improve quality of care, one of the major challenges facing would-be reformers.

But research published today in the journal HSR (Health Services Research) concludes that increasing the number of nurses in a hospital can do a lot to boost the chances that patients will survive–and to encourage experienced nurses to stick with the job at a time when many hospitals suffer from nurse shortages and high turnover.

A team of researchers compared nurses’s experience and patient results in California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In 2004 California began implementation of legislation that mandated the maximum ratio of patients to nurses. It’s still the only staffing ratio legislation in the country, although proposals are pending in 18 states and in Congress.

The researchers, led by Linda Aiken, director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, found that New Jersey and Pennsylvania hospitals would have had, respectively, 14 percent and 11 percent fewer patient deaths in a year if they had the same nurse staffing ratio as California. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5888/more_nurses_fewer_deaths_hospital_study_shows/

[valerief]

1. From the Duh files. In other news, birds with only one wing can't fly.

Amazing what gets studied, huh?

[Warpy]

2. This study echoes one done several years ago

that found that for every assigned patient above the magic number of six on a medical/surgical ward, the chances of death for all of them went up 15%.

The last time I worked on a med/surg floor, I had eleven patients.

Hospitals don't seem to care. They stretch staff as thinly as they can simply because it's cheaper to budget for lawsuits than protect their patients by hiring adequate caregivers. In addition, they've cut staffing in other areas and pushed those jobs onto the backs of already overworked nursing staff.

50% of the registered nurses in this country have left the field due to the appalling working conditions.

Think about it.

[mimitabby]

3. yah think?

[mimitabby]

4. study finds that cars without tires don't roll very well...

[nilram]

6. BREAKING: Giant Ball of Fire to Rise in East After Period of Darkness!

Film at 11...

[Festivito]

5. Can't sue them for this, no competing marketplace, hmm.

Unless we start putting up competing hospitals next to each other, we won't be able to choose which hospital management style we'd like after our bad auto accident.

Hasn't happened yet. Anyone think it will?

[salin]

7. But since we have turned many of these in to for-profit institutions...

who cares - costs too much to have an adequately staffed (per nurses) hospitals.

:sarcasm:

[ismnotwasm]

8. There are developing 'patient care models'

Here and there, that decrease the RN to patient ratio while increasing non-licensed personal. I work on a very busy med-surg unit that deals with profound immunosupression as well as acute in and out-patient dialysis. The care model my place of work is implementing, as designed, is not going to work to increase patient satisfaction or patient safety or better outcomes.


Also, In general, what were considered ICU patients 15 years ago are often seen on acute care floor these days in many hospitals, that means managing different IV drips, complicated wound care, patients that are borderline septic, and very busy post-op patients. The ICU's get very, very sick patients, and may sometimes have to scramble for beds--leaving some patients in ED waiting or PACU for over 24 hours.

I won't even start on the Medicare/Medicaid reinbursement changes that predate the Health care reform bill.

Some of this is due to poor health care availability--delaying of diagnostic tests for instance, and/or the lack of preventative care.

Still, nurse staffing is a place that is often targeted for budget cuts no matter how many studies show it's not safe.