Research Centers - University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

Dr. Eileen Lake was invited to Havana, Cuba, for a week-long consultation with the
National School of Public Health, sponsored by Cuba’s Ministry of Health.
“The mission of the Center for Health
Outcomes and Policy Research 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.”
U.S. and abroad that have organizational
features similar to magnet hospitals have
better nurse and patient outcomes.”
Out of these initial findings, CHOPR’s
research momentum grew, leading to
landmark studies published in major peerreviewed
journals, including The Journal of
the American Medical Association (JAMA),
linking low job satisfaction and poor work
environments to the nursing shortage and
higher patient mortality. Recently, CHOPR
researchers have conducted surveys and
gathered patient outcomes data in California,
Pennsylvania, and New Jersey in research
funded by the NINR and the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation to update and extend
this work.
The work also extends to the
policy arena. “There has also been
a voluntary movement toward the
benchmarks suggested by Penn research,
such as state nurse staffing legislation in
California, federal reaffirmation of BSN job
requirements, the American Organization of
Nurse Executives’ adoption of the BSN as
the desired qualification of hospital nurses,
and a focus on transforming the nurse work
environment,” adds Dr. Aiken.
CHOPR researchers have continued
to study the impact of the nursing shortage
overseas, forming partnerships leading
to multi-disciplinary scholarly exchanges
and translational research opportunities
with colleagues at the University of Basel
in Switzerland, the Institute for Clinical
Evaluative Studies in Toronto, and the
Centre for Policy in Nursing Research
at the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine in London. The Center’s
International Hospital Outcomes Consortium,
which began with a five-country study of
hospital outcomes in the U.S., Canada,
England, Scotland, and Germany, has now
grown to include New Zealand, Switzerland,
Thailand, Japan, and South Korea among
other countries. Dr. Aiken, a member of the
Expert Advisory Panel guiding the World
Alliance for Patient Safety and a recognized
expert on global nurse migration, its
consequences, and solutions in developing
and developed countries, directed the
Nursing Quality Improvement Program in
Russia and Armenia to demonstrate the
successful application of twinning initiatives
with U.S. magnet hospitals to improve
hospital quality.
“Our international research
documents that the challenges nurses face
in providing safe and effective care are
similar in every country in the world. Thus
solutions that succeed in any country to
stabilize the nurse workforce and improve
nurse work environments are likely to work
in any other country. We see our research
as facilitating the diffusion of nursing
innovation and best practices around the
world,” says Dr. Aiken.
Nursing staffing issues are not the
only focal point of CHOPR collaborations.
Research projects also examine leadership
issues, nurses’ ability to influence policy in
their workplaces, factors related to nurse
occupational health, differences in access
to and quality of hospital care for different
10 | care to change the world