Title

Can State Databases Be Used to Develop a National, Standardized Hospital Nurse Staffing Database?

Authors

Authors

L. Unruh; C. A. Russo; H. J. Jiang;C. Stocks

Comments

Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

Abstract

This study evaluates the feasibility of building a national, standardized hospital nurse staffing database from state data collections in order to improve the availability of valid, reliable nursing staffing measures and to allow linkage to other databases. A state-by-state review of public and private reporting systems reveals that 25 states collect some form of nurse staffing data. Out of those, 12 states make complete, usable data available, and 5 additionally meet data quality and specificity criteria. Our review finds that there is little consistency in the content of the RN measure, which makes it difficult to conduct multistate research on nurse staffing topics. We recommend the long-term development of two types of nurse staffing databases: a state-by-state collection, and a standardized, multistate database with uniform data elements across states. This mixed approach will provide a comprehensive source of nurse staffing data to researchers with diverse analytic needs.

Journal Title

Western Journal of Nursing Research

Volume

31

Issue/Number

1

Publication Date

1-1-2009

Document Type

Article

First Page

66

Last Page

88

WOS Identifier

WOS:000262763200006

ISSN

0193-9459

Share

COinS