Patient Outcomes
Research Areas:
An increasing body of scientific literature has linked the characteristics of the health care work environment with the quality of care and other patient outcomes. Recent IOM reports, most notably “Keeping Patients Safe: Transforming the Work Environment of Nurses” (IOM, 2003), clearly demonstrated an association between patient safety and the work environment of nurses. This report, along with its companion report “To Err is Human” (IOM, 1999), strongly recommends using a systems approach that focuses on the environmental context of the health care setting in order to prevent medical errors and the associated human and economic costs of extended stays in health care organizations.
To date, the feature of the nurse work environment that has been the focus of most of the research conducted is nurse staffing. A synthesis of research examining nurse staffing and patient outcomes concludes that nurse staffing has a definitive and measurable impact on patient outcomes, medical errors, length of stay, nursing turnover and patient mortality (Curtin, 2003). Work and Health Research Center researchers are currently investigating the relationship between new forms of work organization in the health care workplace, stress and fatigue in health care workers, and patient safety outcomes.
Grants:
“Do Organizational Factors Influence Both Patient and Work Safety?” 2001-2004, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Using administrative data sets, we assessed system level factors in hospitals (e.g. staffing, ownership) and nursing in relation to adverse patient outcomes and worker injury for the years (PI) A. Trinkoff. (R01 HS11990)
Publications:
Newhouse, R., Johantgen, M., Pronovost, P., & Johnson, E. (2005). Perioperative nurses and patient outcomes: An exploration of mortality, complications, and length of stay. AORN Journal, 81: 508-9, 513-22, 525-8.
Johantgen, M. (2005). Measurement issues in using existing data. In Waltz C, Strickland O, and Lenz E. (Eds.), Measurement in nursing research, 3rd edition.
Trinkoff, A., Johantgen, M., Muntaner, C., & Le, R. (forthcoming 2005). The relationship between staffing and worker injury in nursing homes. American Journal of Public Health.
Trinkoff, A., Johantgen, M., Muntaner, C., & Le, R. (2005). The relationship between staffing and worker injury in nursing homes. American Journal of Public Health 95: 1220-1225.
Johantgen, M.E., Trinkoff A., Gray-Siracusa K., Muntaner C., & Nielsen K. (2004). Using state administrative data to study nonfatal worker injuries: Challenges and opportunities. Journal of Safety Research, 35, 309-315.
Newhouse, R., Mills, M.E., Johantgen, M., & Pronovost, P. (2003). Is there a relationship between service integration and differentiation and patient outcomes? International Journal of Integrated Care, 10 November 2003 (3) ISSN 1568-4156.
Collins, T.L., Engel, C.C., Liu, X, Johantgen, M., & Smith, S. (2002). Do mental disorders matter? A study of absenteeism among care-seeking Gulf War veterans with ill-defined conditions and musculoskeletal disorders. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 59, 532-536.
Dang, D., Johantgen, M.E., Pronovost, P.J., Jenckes, M. & Bass, E.B. (2002). Postoperative complications: Does intensive care unit staff nursing make a difference? Heart & Lung, 31(3), 219-228.
Johantgen, M.E., Elixhauser, A.E., Ball, J.K., Harris, D.R., & Goldfarb, M.G. (1998). Quality indicators using hospital discharge data: State and national applications. The Joint Commission Journal on Quality Improvement, 24(2), 88-105.
Coffey, R.C., Ball, J.K., Johantgen, M.E., Elixhauser, A., Purcell, P., & Andrews, R.M. (1997). The case for national health data standards. Health Affairs, 16(3), 58-72.
Elixhauser, A., Johantgen, M.E., & Andrews, R. (1997). Descriptive statistics by insurance status for most frequent hospital diagnoses and procedures (AHCPR Publication No. 97-0009). Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP-3) Research Note 5, Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Rockville, MD
Leary, R., Johantgen, M.E., Farley, D., Forthman, M.T., & Wooster, L.D. (1997). All Payer Severity-adjusted DRGs (APS-DRGs): A uniform method to severity-adjust discharge data. Topics in Health Information Management, 17(3), 60-71.
Farley, D.E., Johantgen, M.E., & Leary, R. (1996). Adapting HCFA Severity-adjusted DRGs. ADVANCE for Health Information Professionals, 6(24), 13-14.