INQRI Advisor to Lead Study on Nurses’ Impact

A new survey of more than 250,000 registered nurses (RNs) will help to generate evidence about how nurses impact the outcomes of their patients, according to a Nurse.com article. INQRI Research Manager and National Advisory Committee Member Linda Aiken will lead the survey of RNs and Nurse Practitioners holding active licenses in California, Florida, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
 
Aiken is the director of the University of Pennsylvania, School of Nursing’s Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research (CHOPR). The National Institute of Nursing Research provided a $2.9 million grant to CHOPR for the survey, which is titled Panel Study of Effects of Changes in Nursing on Patient Outcomes. RWJF, the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, the Hillman Foundation, and the Boettner Center also provided funding.

“Our study will examine organizational-level changes over time in nurse inputs in education, staffing, skill mix, and work environment between 1999, 2006 and 2015,” Aiken said in a statement on CHOPR’s website. “The great strength of this project is that in creating a panel of organizational observations, we can see where change has occurred and why.”

States Benefit from Increased Autonomy for Nurses

States that allow Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) to practice independently saw an improvement in health outcomes for patients and decreases in costs to Medicare and Medicaid, according to a study by researchers at the Missouri University Sinclair School of Nursing, Nurse.com reports.

The study, “Impact of Nurse Practitioners on Health Outcomes of Medicare and Medicaid Patients,” was published in the November-December issue of Nursing Outlook. Researchers analyzed previous studies with data on Medicare and Medicaid patients and found that states with full practice of nurse practitioners have lower hospitalization rates in all of the groups examined.

An INQRI-funded study, "Scope-Of-Practice Laws For Nurse Practitioners Limit Cost Savings That Can Be Achieved In Retail Clinics,” found similar cost savings at retail clinics in states where nurses had more independence. The study, co-led by Joanne Spetz and Stephen Parente, found that visits to nurse-managed retail clinics were associated with lower costs, and the costs were even lower when Nurse Practitioners (NPs) practiced independently. The researchers concluded that eliminating restrictions on NPs’ scope of practice could have a large impact on the cost savings that can be achieved by retail clinics.

New Survey Shows Nurse Practioners Spending More Time on Patient Education and Medication Adherence

A survey of nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) conducted by Manhattan Research reveals that NPs are playing a central role in helping patients adhere to their medication regimens and also spending more time on patient education - both of which are crucial in improving quality of care and patient outcomes.

According to the survey of 909 NPs and PAs, nearly nine in ten NPs provide resources to patients that help them with medication adherence (including three in ten who have referred patients to digital tools to help with adherence, and almost half of NPs report spending more time on patient education in the last two years.

The survey findings are highlighted in a new infographic.

Several INQRI research teams have examined the role of nurses in medication management, including ways home healthcare nurses can help with adherence; the impact of nursing processes on medication errors; and ways nurses and pharmacists can collaborate on medication reconciliation. And an INQRI research team led by Marianne Weiss and Olga Yakusheva identified the impact of nurses' discharge teaching on patient outcomes, discharge readiness, and readmission rates. A brief on that study was recently posted.