New Study Highlights Increased Patient Mortality Risk When Nurse Staffing Is Low

Assuring adequate nurse staffing remains an important issue in health care management and policy, particularly as it can negatively affect the health of patients.

A new paper—titled “Association of Registered Nurse and Nursing Support Staffing With Inpatient Hospital Mortality“—examines this very issue, looking at the impact of nurse staffing on patient mortality. The study, which was published in BMJ Quality & Safety, was co-authored by Columbia Nursing and the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Key Study Findings

Measuring low staffing as below 75 percent of the median for a hospital unit (ICU, medical, medi-surg, step-down care), the authors found low registered nurse (RN) staffing on 10 percent of day shifts and 9 percent of night shifts, and low nursing support staffing from licensed practical nurses (LPNs) and nurse assistants on over 20 percent of day and night shifts.

The authors’ findings—that patient mortality risk is intensified when support staffing for nurses is low, and that the effect may be intensified when both RN and nursing support staffing are low— are new.

In conclusion, the authors found that low RN and nursing support staffing were associated with increased mortality, and the study’s results should encourage hospital leadership to assure both adequate RN and nursing support staffing.

Full Manuscript

Read “Association of Registered Nurse and Nursing Support Staffing With Inpatient Hospital Mortality” to learn more. The study is related to an earlier study titled “Nurse Staffing and Healthcare-Associated Infection, Unit-Level Analysis.”

Columbia Nursing Authors

Columbia Nursing authors included: Elaine Larson, PhD, senior associate dean of scholarship and research, and Anna C. Maxwell Professor of Nursing Research; Jianfang Liu, PhD, assistant professor of quantitative research (in nursing); Jingjing Shang, PhD, associate professor; and Patricia Stone, PhD; Centennial Professor of Health Policy.