Staffing and Patient Mortality and Failure-to-Rescue
Among the surgical patients studied, there was a pronounced effect of nurse staffing on both mortality and mortality following complications. Table 4 also shows the relationship between nurse staffing and patient mortality and failure-to-rescue (mortality following complications) when other factors were ignored, after patient characteristics were controlled, and after patient characteristics and other hospital characteristics (size, teaching status, and technology) were controlled. Although the ORs reflecting the nurse staffing effect were somewhat diminished by controlling for patient and hospital characteristics, they remained sizable and significant for both mortality and failure-to-rescue (1.07; 95% CI, 1.03-1.12 and 1.07; 95% CI, 1.02-1.11, respectively). An OR of 1.07 implies that the odds of patient mortality increased by 7% for every additional patient in the average nurse's workload in the hospital and that the difference from 4 to 6 and from 4 to 8 patients per nurse would be accompanied by 14% and 31% increases in mortality, respectively (ie, 1.07 to the 2nd power = 1.14 and 1.07 to the 4th power = 1.31).