Nurse staffing practices and adverse events in acute care hospitals: The research protocol of a multisite patient-level longitudinal study

Aims We describe an innovative research protocol to: (a) examine patient-level longitudinal associations between nurse staffing practices and the risk of adverse events in acute care hospitals and; (b) determine possible thresholds for safe nurse staffing. Design A dynamic cohort of adult medical, surgical and intensive care unit patients admitted to 16 hospitals in Quebec (Canada) between January 2015-December 2019. Methods Patients in the cohort will be followed from admission until 30-day postdischarge to assess exposure to selected nurse staffing practices in relation to the subsequent occurrence of adverse events. Five staffing practices will be measured for each shift of an hospitalization episode, using electronic payroll data, with the following time-varying indicators: (a) nursing worked hours per patient; (b) skill mix; (c) overtime use; (d) education mix and; and (e) experience. Four high-impact adverse events, presumably associated with nurse staffing practices, will be measured from electronic health record data retrieved at the participating sites: (a) failure-to-rescue; (b) in-hospital falls; (c) hospital-acquired pneumonia and; and (d) venous thromboembolism. To examine the associations between the selected nurse staffing exposures and the risk of each adverse event, separate multivariable Cox proportional hazards frailty regression models will be fitted, while adjusting for patient, nursing unit and hospital characteristics, and for clustering. To assess for possible staffing thresholds, flexible non-linear spline functions will be fitted. Funding for the study began in October 2019 and research ethics/institutional approval was granted in February 2020. Discussion To our knowledge, this study is the first multisite patient-level longitudinal investigation of the associations between common nurse staffing practices and the risk of adverse events. It is hoped that our results will assist hospital managers in making the most effective use of the scarce nursing resources and in identifying staffing practices that minimize the occurrence of adverse events.

Automated summary

This innovative research protocol aims to examine the longitudinal associations between nurse staffing practices and adverse events in acute care hospitals, and determine safe nurse staffing thresholds. The study will follow a dynamic cohort of adult patients in Quebec, Canada, to assess the impact of selected nurse staffing practices on adverse events occurrence.