Title

Can State Databases Be Used To Develop A National, Standardized Hospital Nurse Staffing Database?

Keywords

Data availability; Descriptive quantitative methods; Nurse staffing measures

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. © 2009 Sage Publications.

Publication Date

2-1-2009

Publication Title

Western Journal of Nursing Research

Volume

31

Issue

1

Number of Pages

66-88

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1177/0193945908319992

Socpus ID

58449113049 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/58449113049

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