Better-educated nurses save more lives. A study known as the Registered Nurses Forecasting (RN4CAST), part of National Institutes of Health is the most detailed and biggest analysis of patient outcomes related to nursing staffs and education.
About better educated nurses
The report on this study was published in the Lancet, in February. The purpose of this study is to provide scientific evidence for decision makers in Europe; it is a guide to help in planning nurse workforces for the future. According to the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) director Dr. Patricia A. Grady,
“Building the scientific foundation for clinical practice has long been a crucial goal of nursing research and the work supported by NINR. This study emphasizes the role that nurses play in ensuring successful patient outcomes and underscores the need for a well-educated nursing workforce. This study is another example of how nursing science can help inform policies that promote positive patient outcomes not only in the U.S., but around the world.”
Findings of this study
Hospitals that have a nursing staff with a higher proportion of nurses with bachelor degrees and fewer patients had a considerably less number of hospitalized patients die after undergoing surgery. The finding of this study also calls attention to the risk to patients when a nurse staffing is cut and the need for bachelor’s educated nurses to reduce hospital deaths.
The emphasis here is that fewer deaths are associated with a better-educated nurse workforce. The report shows that for every 10 percent increase of nurses with bachelor degrees, there was an associated reduction in the probability of death by 7 percent. Dr Grady points out,
“This study emphasizes the role that nurses play in ensuring successful patient outcomes and underscores the need for a well-educated nursing workforce.”
Researchers estimate that patients in hospitals with 60 percent of nurses with bachelor degrees who cared for an average of six patients had a nearly a one-third reduced risk of dying in a hospital after surgery compared to only one-third of nurses with bachelor degrees who cared for an average of eight patients.
Dr. Linda Aiken of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Philadelphia offers this comment,
“Our study is the first to examine nursing workforce data across multiple European nations and analyze them in relation to objective clinical outcomes, rather than patient or nurse reports. Our findings complement studies in the U.S. linking improved hospital nurse staffing and higher education levels with decreased mortality.”
In the United States, these types of analyses provided information to the Institute of Medicine that in the U.S., 80 percent of the nurses have bachelors degrees by 2020. Hospitals are following this course of action with preferential hiring of bachelor degree-trained nurses.
It makes sense. For more information on the NINR, visit the website at http://www.ninr.nih.gov/
Read more of George Zapo’s articles about public, global, and environmental health at his website: Healthy Habits.