Efficacy of Using Available Data to Examine Nurse Staffing Ratios and Quality of Care Metrics

BACKGROUND: Nurse staffing ratios impact both the quality and safety of care on a particular unit. Most hospitals have access to a large volume of nurse-sensitive outcomes. We hypothesized that these data could be used to explore the impact of changing the nurse-to-patient ratio on patient-reported outcomes, nurse satisfaction scores, and quality of care metrics. METHODS: Retrospective data from hospital resources (eg, Press Ganey reports) were linked to daily staffing records (eg, assignment sheets) in a pre-post study. Before September 2017, the nurse-to-patient ratio was 1:1.75 (pre); afterward, the ratio was reduced to 1:1.5 (post). RESULTS: Press Ganey National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators scores were improved, staffing turnover rates were reduced, and falls were linked to periods of high nurse-to-patient ratios. CONCLUSION: This study shows the efficacy of using readily available metrics to explore for associations between nurse staffing and nurse-sensitive outcomes at the nursing care unit level. This provides a unique perspective to optimize staffing ratios based on personalized (unit-level) metrics.