Nurse numbers, education linked to patient death rate

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Nurse numbers, education linked to patient death rate

By Allison Bond NEW YORK (Reuters) - Both the quality and quantity of nurses on a hospital staff have significant influence on the chances patients will die following even simple surgery, according to a large new study. Researchers found the proportion of staff nurses with a bachelor's degree and the number of patients each nurse had to care for could add up to a difference of 30 percent or more in mortality rates for inpatients. "If you go to a hospital in a developed country like the U.S. or UK, you think you'd get equal care, but that's really not the case," said the study's lead author, Linda Aiken, a professor of nursing and director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. "Research suggests we haven't really made any progress in decreasing deaths even though we've been spending lots of money on patient safety.

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