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A study across 55 hospitals in Queensland, Australia suggests that a recent state policy to introduce a minimum ratio of one nurse to four patients for day shifts has successfully improved patient care, with a 7% drop in the chance of death and readmission, and 3% reduction in length of stay for every one less patient a nurse has on their workload.
The study of more than 400,000 patients and 17,000 nurses in 27 hospitals that implemented the policy and 28 comparison hospitals is published in
The Lancet. It is the first prospective evaluation of the health policy aimed at boosting nurse numbers in hospitals to ensure a minimum safe standard and suggests that savings made from shorter hospital stays and fewer readmissions were double the cost of hiring more staff.
Higher ratios of nurses to patients lead to fewer deaths and readmissions, as well as shorter hospital stays and cost savings for providers, according to researchers.
The findings come from a large study in Australia and prompted calls for the “important lessons” from the research to be considered by those involved in drawing up healthcare workforce strategies.
“We hope that our data convinces people of the need for minimum nurse-to-patient ratios”
Matthew McHugh
The study, involving 55 hospitals in Queensland, suggests that a recent state policy to introduce a minimum ratio of one nurse to four patients for day shifts has successfully improved patient care.