Purpose
The aim of this study was to examine the differences in nurse staffing levels and patient outcomes in long-term care hospitals by region and to identity the effects of nurse staffing level and registered nurse proportion on patient outcomes.
Methods
A secondary analysis of national data that included general characteristics of hospitals and long-term care hospitals’ evaluation results from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Services was conducted, and 1,205 hospitals were selected.
Results
Results showed that the mean number of patients per nursing staff and registered nurse proportion were 4.27 and 0.43, respectively. The differences in long-term care hospitals’ evaluation results and nurse staffing levels according to region were significant. A logistic regression analysis showed that the number of patients per nursing staff affected the probability of the patient experiencing a decline in daily life activities, as well as a decline in the outcomes of patients who were non-dementia; registered nurse proportion affected the outcomes of patients with dementia.
Conclusion
The findings suggest that implementing policies to improve long-term care hospitals’ nurse staffing level and registered nurse proportion is important. Ensuring mandatory registered nurse staffing levels based on the severity of patients’ diagnoses is also necessary.

Citations

• Factors Affecting Fall Incidents at Long-term Care Hospitals: Using Data from the Korea Patient Safety Reporting and Learning System
  Soojin Chung, Jeongim Lee
  Journal of Health Informatics and Statistics.2025; 50(1): 96.     CrossRef
• Registered Nurse Staffing and Inpatient Outcomes in Korean Long-Term Care Hospitals
  Sujin Shin, Jung Min Yoon, Eun-Ju Moon, Mi-Ji Lee, Jin-Hwa Park
  Healthcare.2024; 12(24): 2509.     CrossRef
• Factors Associated with Patient Safety Incidents in Long-Term Care Hospitals: A Secondary Data Analysis
  Sookhee Yoon, Myungsuk Kang
  Korean Journal of Adult Nursing.2022; 34(3): 295.     CrossRef
• Type D personality, cognitive illness perception, depression, approach coping, and self-management among older adults in long-term care hospitals: Structural equation modeling
  Sunki Kim, Mona Choi, JuHee Lee, Heejung Kim, Kijun Song, Hye-Ja Park
  Geriatric Nursing.2022; 48: 150.     CrossRef

PURPOSE
This study was conducted to explore the impact of nurse staffing level and oral care on pneumonia in elderly inpatients in long-term care hospitals (LTCHs).
METHODS
Data were obtained from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Services (HIRA) including the profiles of LTCHs, monthly patient assessment reports and medical report survey data of pneumonia patients by HIRA in the fourth quarter of 2010. The sample consisted of 37 LTCHs and 6,593 patients.
RESULTS
Patient per nurse staff (OR=1.43, CI=1.22~1.68) and no oral care (OR=1.29, CI=1.01~1.64) were significantly related with hospital acquired pneumonia. The difference in percent of oral care by hospital was not significant between high and low group in nurse staffing level.
CONCLUSION
In order to reduce the occurrence of pneumonia in eldery patients, effective nursing interventions are not only required but also nurse staffing levels that enable nurses to provide the intervention.

Citations

• The Level of Performance, Frequency and Educational Needs of Nursing Activities in Long-term Care Hospital
  Sun-Sook Moon, Yeon Ok Suh, Kyung-Woo Lee, Jasung Gu
  The Korean Journal of Rehabilitation Nursing.2018; 21(2): 110.     CrossRef

PURPOSE
The objective of this study was to analyze the effects of medical staffing level as bed-to-medical staff ratio on patient outcomes as length of stay (LOS) among hospitals in Korea.
METHODS
Two hundred and fifty one hospitals participated in the study between January and March 2008. Data for the study was requested by an electronic data interchange from the Health Insurance Review Agency in 2008. In data analysis, SPSS WIN 15.0 program was utilized for descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficients, and multiple regression.
RESULTS
The mean score for length of stay was 13.6 days. The mean of operating bed-to-nurse ratio was 7.93:1. The predicting factors for LOS were bed-to-nurse's aide ratio, bed-to doctor's ratio, severely ill patient rate, and hospital type. These factors explained 28.9% of the variance in patient outcomes.
CONCLUSION
This study results indicate that the relationship between medical staffing level and patient outcomes is important in the improvement of the quality of patient care. Thus, improvements in the quality of the nurse practice environment could improve patient outcomes for hospitalized patients.

Citations

• Impact on health outcomes of hemodialysis patients based on the experience level of registered nurses in the hemodialysis department: a cross-sectional analysis
  EunYoung Jeong
  Frontiers in Health Services.2023;[Epub]     CrossRef
• Effect of an Age-Stratified Working Environment and Hospital Characteristics on Nurse Turnover
  Yoseb Lee, Jeong Lim Kim, So Hee Kim, Jungmi Chae
  Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service Research.2022; 2(1): 106.     CrossRef
• Inpatient care focused strategy and convergence performance in hospitals
  Hai-Won Yoo
  Journal of the Korea Convergence Society.2016; 7(4): 59.     CrossRef
• Relationship between Medical Service Specialization and Operational Performance in Hospitals: Focusing on Length of Stay and Medical Expense
  Hai-Won Yoo, Kyoung-Hoon Kim
  The Korean Journal of Health Service Management.2016; 10(1): 1.     CrossRef
• A Study on Fitness Evaluation for Major Education of Competency Unit Element by the Development and Application of Subject Contents Based on NCS of Health Majoring Students at Junior Colleges
  Min-Ja Kim, Hee-Jung Yang
  Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society.2016; 17(8): 508.     CrossRef
• Effect of nurse staffing variation and hospital resource utilization
  Yunmi Kim, Seon‐Ha Kim, Young Ko
  Nursing & Health Sciences.2016; 18(4): 473.     CrossRef
• A Delphi Study to Elicit Policies for Nurse Workforce based on Patient Safety
  Sung Ok Chang, Byoung Sook Lee, Jong Im Kim, Sung Rae Shin
  Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration.2014; 20(2): 215.     CrossRef