Research Centers - University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

Almost a million nurses. This shocking
statistic is what many healthcare
workforce experts estimate the U.S. nursing
shortage will be by 2020. Because that
number exceeds the total number of nurses
in any other country in the world, it’s unlikely
the U.S. can solve its nursing shortage
through international recruitment. And many
question whether it should.
Nursing is one of the top five
occupations in the U.S. projected to produce
the most new jobs as more than half a
million nurses retire within the decade and
the population ages and nursing school
graduates fall short. The consequences of a
significant nurse shortage include problems
of healthcare access and quality, impaired
emergency response, consequences to the
military, and even slowed economic growth.
“The mission of the Center for
Health Outcomes and Policy Research
(CHOPR) is to develop the science of how
nursing contributes to achieving good
patient outcomes and the evidence base
for managing the nurse workforce to meet
national and global healthcare needs,”
says Center Director Linda Aiken, HOM
’88, PhD, RN, FAAN, FRCN, the Claire M.
Fagin Leadership Professor in Nursing and
Professor of Sociology. “We apply scientific
findings to improve evidence-based
decision-making in practice and policy.”
Established in 1989, CHOPR consists
of an interdisciplinary team involving 30
faculty, staff, research fellows, and students
from nursing, medicine, sociology, and
economics who conduct large-scale National
Institutes of Health (NIH) studies. As a result
of the Center’s innovative work, it has been
designated a National Institute of Nursing
Research (NINR) P30 research core center.
CHOPR’s original research agenda,
begun in 1988, considered whether there
were exemplary hospitals for nursing
practice, whether patient outcomes were
better in such hospitals, and whether
these hospital environments could be
replicated. This area of inquiry produced
an evidence base of superior outcomes
for these hospitals which eventually led
to the Magnet Recognition Program of the
American Nurses Credentialing Center. “We
demonstrated that magnet hospitals have
lower Medicare mortality rates than matched
non-magnet hospitals,” says Dr. Aiken. “We
determined from surveys of nurses practicing
in magnet hospitals that their institutions had
organizational attributes that were different
from other hospitals. In subsequent research,
we have demonstrated that hospitals in the
Cultivating
the Next Generation of
Scientists
CHOPR offers Advanced Training
in Nursing Outcomes Research via
a (T32) NINR, NIH grant that
provides funding for pre-doctoral
and postdoctoral research fellows.
Ann Kutney Lee, a doctoral student
whose research interests include
nurse organization, quality of care,
and patient outcomes, especially
in those with mental illness, will
continue her work at CHOPR as a
postdoctoral fellow. “This decision
was made with firsthand knowledge
that CHOPR has the power, ability
and resources to make change
happen in healthcare,” she says.
Dr. Aiken (far right) with the Armenian nurses that were trained as part of the
Nursing Quality Improvement Program.
Postdoctoral fellow Eunhee Cho,
GR ’05, GNu ’06, PhD, MPH, MSN,
RN, is the project director for the
School of Nursing’s Global Research
Collaborative Initiative. “This initiative
aims to create a research partnership
between Penn Nursing, the Yonsei
University School of Nursing in
South Korea, and Penn Nursing’s
South Korean alumni to replicate
CHOPR’s International Hospital
Outcomes Study examining the impact
of differential staffing levels and
organizational attributes on patient
and nurse outcomes in South Korea.”
september 2007 | 9