Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.
Health Aff (Millwood). 2013 Mar;32(3):579-86. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2012.0504.
An Institute of Medicine report has called for registered nurses to achieve higher levels of education, but health care policy makers and others have limited evidence to support a substantial increase in the number of nurses with baccalaureate degrees. Using Pennsylvania nurse survey and patient discharge data from 1999 and 2006, we found that a ten-point increase in the percentage of nurses holding a baccalaureate degree in nursing within a hospital was associated with an average reduction of 2.12 deaths for every 1,000 patients--and for a subset of patients with complications, an average reduction of 7.47 deaths per 1,000 patients. We estimate that if all 134 hospitals in our study had increased the percentage of their nurses with baccalaureates by ten points during our study's time period, some 500 deaths among general, orthopedic, and vascular surgery patients might have been prevented. The findings provide support for efforts to increase the production and employment of baccalaureate nurses.
美国医学研究所的一份报告呼吁注册护士接受更高水平的教育，但医疗保健政策制定者和其他人几乎没有证据支持大幅增加拥有学士学位的护士数量。利用宾夕法尼亚州的护士调查和 1999 年至 2006 年的患者出院数据，我们发现，医院中持有护理学士学位的护士比例每增加 10 个百分点，每 1000 名患者的死亡人数平均减少 2.12 人，对于有并发症的患者亚组，每 1000 名患者的死亡人数平均减少 7.47 人。我们估计，如果我们研究中的 134 家医院在研究期间将其拥有学士学位的护士比例提高 10 个百分点，那么普通、骨科和血管外科患者的死亡人数可能会减少约 500 人。这些发现为增加学士学位护士的数量和就业提供了支持。
