May 08, 2018

Fewer patients with dementia die after surgery when nurses are better educated

 

Patients in hospitals that employ more educated nurses have better survival rates, according to new research out of the US.

The higher the proportion of college educated nurses in a hospital, the higher the survival rate, the research showed, with the strongest increase in survival recorded for patients living with dementia.

In 2010, the US Institute of Medicine called for 80 per cent of hospital nurses to have at least a college degree by 2020.

“Our findings suggest that transitioning to a largely (college-educated) nursing workforce… would contribute to improved surgical outcomes for this population,” said lead study author Elizabeth White, a geriatric nurse practitioner and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing in Philadelphia.

“College educated nurses spend more time training for sicker patients”

“Nurses with at least a bachelor’s degree have likely spent more time training to care for sicker patients with a greater burden of medical illnesses and who require more complicated medical care,” Jennifer Watt, a geriatrician at St. Michael’s Hospital and the University of Toronto in Canada, told the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

The study

The study followed 46,163 people with Alzheimer’s or dementia and a control group of 307,170 patients who didn’t have these conditions.

Overall, 12,369 patients, or 3.5 percent, died within 30 days of admission to the hospital, according to reports in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Sadly, the mortality rate for dementia patients, at 8 per cent, was much higher than that for people without dementia, at less than 3 per cent.

In the hospitals examined, 38 per cent of nurses had at least a four-year bachelor’s degree, but in some hospitals no nurses had bachelor degrees, while in others the proportion was as high as 74 per cent.

The researchers found that for each 10 per cent increase in the proportion of nurses with at least a bachelor’s degree, the chance of dying was 4 per cent lower for patients without dementia and an even more impressive 10 per cent lower for patients with dementia.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

35 specialist dementia care units to be rolled out across Australia, new trial

The government has announced it will roll out 35 specialist dementia care units across Australia to ensure that some of the most vulnerable people living with dementia receive the specialist care they require. The government has revealed it will invest $70 million in the Specialist Dementia Care Program. The network of specialist dementia care units... Read More

Aged care providers should employ more qualified nurses: Inquiry

Aged care providers should employ more qualified nurses, say officials from the Department of Health. Representatives from the Federal Department of Health were questioned yesterday as part of the Federal Inquiry into the Quality of Care in Residential Aged Care Facilities in Australia. The Australian Medical Association’s General Practice Chief, Richard Kidd, told the inquiry... Read More

“Everyday I go to work I make it my mission to give the residents the best experience”

Submitted by Anonymous Earlier on in my career I have to say I probably wasn’t as acutely aware of the distress some older people no doubt went through when transitioning from their own home into aged care. I am now. This realisation has made me a better nurse, a better listener and a better carer. Now... Read More
Advertisement