New Study From Penn Nursing Links Nurse Work Environments With Outcomes

A new meta-analysis from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing’s (Penn Nursing) Center for Health Outcomes & Policy Research (CHOPR) has synthesized 16 years of studies to show the association between the nurse work environment and four sets of outcomes: nurse job outcomes, nurse assessments of quality and safety, patient health outcomes, and patient satisfaction.

Nurses play a critical role in patient safety and new research from Penn Nursing explores the relationship between the nurse work environment and a variety of patient and nurse quality and safety outcomes. Nurses are often the last line of defense against medical errors and unsafe practices and this new research shows an association between nurse work environments and health care quality, safety, and patient and clinician well-being.

Lead-investigator Eileen T. Lake, PhD, MSN, FAAN, the Jessie M. Scott Endowed Term Chair in Nursing and Health Policy, tells TheDP.com, “Our quantitative synthesis of the results of many studies revealed that better work environments were associated with lower odds of negative outcomes ranging from patient and nurse job dissatisfaction to patient mortality.”

The study involved a systematic review of studies from around the world that reported empirical research using the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index. The study reported data from more than 2,600 hospitals, 165,000 nurses, and 1.3 million patients about the practice environment, nurse job outcomes, safety and quality ratings, patient outcomes, and patient satisfaction.

To learn more about Penn Nursing’s new study linking better work environments with lower odds of negative outcomes, visit here.