Nursing Impact on Care Outcomes for Chronically Ill and Minority Patients This revised competing continuation (R01NR04513) extends a highly successful program of research that has influenced changes in practice and policy, and stimulated global interest in nursing outcomes research. We extend our work on the significant association between preventable hospitals deaths and the organizational context of nursing care into new domains of theoretical relevance and substantive interest, new patient populations, and new outcomes. We have documented in our current work significant increases in chronic health conditions among people seeking hospital care for acute medical illnesses such as acute myocardial infarction, stroke, gastrointestinal bleeding, and acute congestive heart failure, and for general surgery, reflecting changes in population health. We will determine whether nursing factors are particularly important for preventing adverse outcomes during hospitalization for these at-risk patients. Our greatest interest is in three conditions that are increasing significantly among hospitalized patients and have important implications for nursing care: obesity, diabetes, and chronic pulmonary disease. We look not only at the outcomes for individual patients with these underlying chronic conditions. We also examine whether the outcomes for patients without chronic conditions are poorer in hospitals with higher concentrations of patients with these particular chronic conditions. All else being equal, we expect that non-chronic patients in hospitals with high concentrations of chronic patients may not benefit as much from better nurse staffing and care environments as similar patients in hospitals with lower concentrations of chronic patients because nurses in the former hospitals devote relatively more attention to those at risk of poor outcomes but are not likely to be better staffed. Similarly, we turn our attention to racial and ethnic disparities in hospital outcomes to test whether poorer outcomes for minorities are explained by a combination of multiple underlying chronic health conditions and the concentration of minorities in hospitals with poor nurse staffing and education and less satisfactory care environments. Surprisingly the large literature on health disparities rarely considers how nursing might be a factor that explains poor outcomes, which is a necessary step to understanding whether improving nurse staffing and care environments is likely to contribute to reducing disparities in hospital outcomes. The findings have implications for nurse staffing standards and hospital payment, particularly for minority-serving hospitals.

Public Health Relevance

Changes in population health, including sharp increases in chronic conditions, contribute to the complexity of hospital care and increase the risk for poor outcomes. Disparities in hospital outcomes by race and ethnicity persist. This study examines whether improving nursing resources in hospitals would be a potentially effective strategy to improve outcomes in these overlapping populations.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01NR004513-14
Application #
8269929
Study Section
Nursing Science: Adults and Older Adults Study Section (NSAA)
Program Officer
Huss, Karen
Project Start
1997-07-15
Project End
2014-05-31
Budget Start
2012-06-01
Budget End
2014-05-31
Support Year
14
Fiscal Year
2012
Total Cost
$446,385
Indirect Cost
$160,411
Name
University of Pennsylvania
Department
Other Health Professions
Type
Schools of Nursing
DUNS #
042250712
City
Philadelphia
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
19104
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Lake, Eileen T; Germack, Hayley D; Viscardi, Molly Kreider (2016) Missed nursing care is linked to patient satisfaction: a cross-sectional study of US hospitals. BMJ Qual Saf 25:535-43
McHugh, Matthew D; Rochman, Monica F; Sloane, Douglas M et al. (2016) Better Nurse Staffing and Nurse Work Environments Associated With Increased Survival of In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Patients. Med Care 54:74-80
Lasater, Karen B; McHugh, Matthew D (2016) Reducing Hospital Readmission Disparities of Older Black and White Adults After Elective Joint Replacement: The Role of Nurse Staffing. J Am Geriatr Soc 64:2593-2598
Lasater, Karen B; Mchugh, Matthew D (2016) Nurse staffing and the work environment linked to readmissions among older adults following elective total hip and knee replacement. Int J Qual Health Care 28:253-8
Lake, Eileen T; Hallowell, Sunny G; Kutney-Lee, Ann et al. (2016) Higher Quality of Care and Patient Safety Associated With Better NICU Work Environments. J Nurs Care Qual 31:24-32
McHugh, Matthew D; Aiken, Linda H; Eckenhoff, Myra E et al. (2016) Achieving Kaiser Permanente quality. Health Care Manage Rev 41:178-88
Stimpfel, Amy Witkoski; Rosen, Jennifer E; McHugh, Matthew D (2015) Understanding the Role of the Professional Practice Environment on Quality of Care in Magnet® and Non-Magnet Hospitals. J Nurs Adm 45:S52-8

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