RN Characteristics and Staffing Patterns: A Comparison of VHA and NonVHA Hospital RNs in the United

1
RN Characteristics and Staffing Patterns A
Comparison of VHA and Non-VHA Hospital RNs in the
United States
vhapugsharpn Usually youd have your
presentation title here then include a 2nd
slide that says this is part of a project,
NSPO I see youve got that on slide 4

• Gwendolyn T. Greiner, Nancy D. Sharp, Yu-Fang Li,
  Anne E. Sales
• Funded by the VA Health Services Research and
  Development Service IIR 01-160, Anne E. Sales, PI

2
Objective
Vhapugsharp Since you have only one slide on
staffing ratios and that has both IHOC and VHA,
perhaps this would be better with one objective
(the second) and then indicate very briefly what
you are comparing them on hospital and nurse
characteristics and nurse staffing structures

• To compare VA nurses with PA nurses sampled by
  the International Hospital Outcomes Consortium on
  hospital and nurse characteristics and patient to
  RN staffing ratios

3
Methods

• Part of a larger project, Nurse Staffing and
  Patient Outcomes in VA (NSPO) study
• Project goal to examine associations between
  nurse staffing, work environment, nursing care
  processes, nursing outcomes and nurse-sensitive
  patient outcomes in VA hospitals

4
Survey of VA Nursing Staff

• February - June 2003
• Included nursing staff at 125 VA facilities with
  information obtained from Nurse Executives
• Numbers and types of units
• Numbers of nursing staff by type of nursing
  personnel
• Mailed survey packets to nursing units with
  postage-paid return envelopes
• 46,277 surveys mailed with 11,364 responses
  across all types of nursing personnel (24.6
  response rate)
• Included RN respondents only for these results

5
International Hospital Outcomes Consortium

• Surveyed hospital RNs in PA
• Data comparisons come from published article
• Aiken, LH et al. Hospital Nurse Staffing and
  Patient Mortality, Nurse Burnout, and Job
  Dissatisfaction, JAMA October 2002

6
Comparing VA to Pennsylvania RNs

• Included VA RN respondents corresponding to PA RN
  respondents
• Hospital RNs reporting responsibility for 1 to
  lt20 patients on last shift
• VHA N 3,568 from 125 hospitals
• PA N 10,184 from 168 hospitals
• Comparison of VA and PA samples by
• Hospital characteristics
• Nurse characteristics
• Staffing ratios (pts/RN)

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Hospital Characteristics
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Hospital Characteristics
vhapugsharpn I would move this from slide to
notes - just say it same for all subsequent
titles
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Nurse Characteristics
10
Nurse Characteristics
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Nurse CharacteristicsRN report of clinical
specialty
12
RN Burnout and Job Satisfaction
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Patient/RN Staffing Ratios
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Patient/RN Staffing RatiosVHA RNs by Clinical
Specialty
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Conclusions

• In general, most hospital and demographic
  characteristics were similar for both samples
• VHA may demonstrate better practices in RN
  staffing with regard to job satisfaction and
  burnout
• VHA RN staffing ratios compare relatively
  favorably with those reported for PA hospitals