When it comes to demonstrating relationships between nursing care and patient outcomes, whether it’s care impacted by personnel shortages or education levels, you won’t find a more respected authority than Linda H. Aiken, PhD, RN, FAAN, FRCN. So I counted it a distinct honor recently to facilitate and record, for future publication in Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), an interview of Aiken by Karen H. Morin, DSN, RN, ANEF, FAAN, immediate past president of the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI).
I first learned of Aiken’s contributions as a nurse researcher when I became editor of RNL in July 2000. It was hard not to notice. As I boned up on nursing trends and who was who in nursing, it seemed as though her research on hospital nursing care was being cited everywhere. The landmark report from the Institute of Medicine, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, had just been published and had drawn attention to a study of New York hospitals, which suggested that as many as 98,000 Americans were dying each year as a result of medical errors (Kohn, Corrigan, & Donaldson, 2000). In September 2000, a three-part series in the Chicago Tribune declared, “Nursing mistakes kill, injure thousands,” effectively attaching much of the blame for those errors to hospital cost cutting and “overwhelmed and inadequately trained nurses” (Berens, 2000, para. 1).
Amidst that milieu of media indictments, Aiken and her colleagues observed in “Nurses’ reports on hospital care in five countries,” published in May 2001 in Health Affairs, that the then-current nursing shortage, high dissatisfaction among hospital nurses and reports of uneven quality in hospital care were phenomena not confined strictly to the United States. At the core, they said, patient care was threatened by problems in work design and workforce management.
In recognition of her landmark research, The Baxter Foundation awarded Aiken the Episteme Award, regarded by many as the Nobel Prize of nursing, at STTI’s 2001 Biennial Convention. In 2003, The Joint Commission presented Aiken with the Ernest Amory Codman Award and described her as “the single most influential nurse leader and researcher in the field of nursing outcomes research.” It’s no wonder that, when Aiken speaks, nurses and other health care workers, as well as administrators and policymakers, listen.
Today, as director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research, Claire M. Fagin Leadership Professor of Nursing, professor of sociology and senior fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, Aiken continues to be a cutting-edge researcher. Which brings me back to the recent exchange between Aiken and Morin, with me as the recording eavesdropper.
In the near future, we will be sharing in Reflections on Nursing Leadership what Aiken says about recent research she has conducted on the effect of educational levels on nursing outcomes. She also talks about what motivated her research in the first place. Did you know her PhD is in sociology?
Join the conversation now
Discussion about what should be the minimum educational level for entry into nursing practice has been going on for decades. Aiken observes in her soon-to-come interview that it was going on when she entered the profession in the 1960s. And it’s still going on. In fact, it’s one of the 10 most pressing issues identified by nurse leaders in a newly released STTI book, The Power of Ten: Nurse Leaders Address the Profession’s Ten Most Pressing Issues.
You don’t need to wait for the Aiken interview to join the conversation. Join in right now by going to http://www.powerof10book.org and clicking on “BSN required?” or any of the other nine critical issues listed. The book and website are not intended to be all talk and no action. As CEO Patricia Thompson, EdD, RN, FAAN, observes in the book’s preface: “It is up to us as nurses to use this opportunity to advance nursing’s invaluable role in health care.” Add your voice and become an agent for positive change.
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Call for nominations
References:
Aiken, L.H., Clarke, S.P., Sloane, D.M., Sochalski, J.A., Busse, R., Clarke, H. . . . Shamian, J. (2001). Nurses’ report on hospital care in five countries. Health Affairs, 20(3). Retrieved from http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/409808
Thompson, P.E. (2011). Preface. In The power of ten: Nurse leaders address the profession’s ten most pressing issues (p. v). Indianapolis, IN: Sigma Theta Tau International.
