Articles of Interest

We provide the following articles on Nursing for our members. If you have an article you would like to share with your fellow nurses, please contact our office.

Sent on behalf of Nursing Practice & Policy

Click here to read the response developed by the Tri-Council for Nursing to address a radio news report on Minnesota Public Radio - http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/minnecon/archive/2010/06/nursing-supply-and-demand-out-of-whack.shtml .

The report highlighted nursing supply projections from the research group Economic Modeling Specialists, Inc. (EMSI). The model and data used by EMSI suggested that the United States is producing too may nurses. The attached response refutes the EMSI projections. The Tri-Council for Nursing includes the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, American Nurses Association, American Organization of Nurse Executives, and National League for Nursing.

Peter Buerhaus article on Message for Thought Leaders and Health Policymakers
Peter Buerhaus article on Recent Surge In Nurse Employment: Causes And Implications

 
The Economic Value of Professional Nursing

The American Nurses Association (ANA) is pleased to announce, on behalf of the larger nursing community, the release of a study quantifying the economic value of nursing. The study was conducted by the Lewin Group, supported by grants from Nursing's Agenda for the Future, the ANA, and a coalition of nursing associations dedicated to addressing nursing workforce issues.

This study draws heavily on the growing body of literature to quantify the economic value of professional nursing. Click here for the full article.

Hiring One Extra Nurse Might Help Hospitals Save Lives

If hospitals added one more full-time registered nurse on staff to care for patients, the number of hospital-related deaths in the United States could decrease significantly, according to a new review. However, cost concerns and a worsening nursing shortage might make this an unlikely scenario. Full Article

 Nurse Staffing and Patient, Nurse, and Financial Outcomes

Because there’s no scientific evidence to support specific nurse–patient ratios, and in order to assess the impact of hospital nurse staffing levels on given patient, nurse, and financial outcomes, the author conducted a literature review. The evidence shows that adequate staffing and balanced workloads are central to achieving good outcomes, and the author offers recommendations for ensuring appropriate nurse staffing and for further research. Full Article

Nurse Staffing: Public Policy, Private Persuasion, or Both? 

The purpose of this article is not to review in a scholarly fashion the benefits and drawbacks of staffing laws, regulations and private standards.
Rather, it is to provide an introduction to nurse staffing to begin a broader discussion among nurses in Virginia on whether there is a need to provide more effective methods of ensuring adequate and safe nurse staffing. Full Article.

 Out of Order, Out of Time

Out of Order, Out of Time: The State of the Nation’s Health Workforce is a report undertaken by the Association of Academic Health Centers (AAHC) to focus attention on the critical need for a new, collaborative, coordinated, national health workforce planning initiative. Full Article

Policy, Politics, and Nursing Practice: Economics of Nursing

Pay-for-performance initiatives have renewed interest in payment reform as a vehicle for improving nurse staffing and working conditions in hospitals because of research linking investments in nursing and better patient outcomes. This article addresses the economics of nursing from a broad perspective that considers how both national policies such as hospital prospective payment and managerial decisions within institutions impact the outcomes of nurses and patients. Full Article.

 Public Perceptions of Nursing Careers: The Influence of the Media and Nursing Shortages

The expected future demand for nurse labor challenges us to look more closely at the public's perceptions of nursing and nursing careers, and consider how they are shaped by personal experience, media messages, and socio-demographic factors. Full Article

 What Works: Healing the healthcare staffing shortage

Executives today must consider what kinds of nurses and doctors are needed, what tasks these clinicians are best educated to deliver, and how technology and lower-skilled workers can be used to supplement or replace them.
PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) Health Research Institute (HRI) studied this evolving issue with the intent of providing a 360 degree view of current workforce challenges and providing a roadmap for a new, more sustainable workforce model. Full Article