Penn Nursing Expert: Why Better Educated Nurses Mean Fewer Patient Deaths

*Broadcast studio available for media interviews.

When hospitals hire more nurses with four-year degrees, patient deaths following common surgeries decrease, reports a new Penn Nursing study in Health Affairs. Health outcomes expert and author of this new study, Ann Kutney-Lee, PhD, RN, is available to talk about the policy implications of this research.

Dr. Kutney-Lee is an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and a senior fellow in Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. Her research focuses on how health systems can be designed to work more efficiently to improve care, especially in patients with chronic health conditions hospitalized for medical-surgical reasons.

The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing is one of the premier research institutions in nursing, producing new knowledge in geriatrics, pediatrics, oncology, quality-of-life choices, and other areas. Researchers here consistently receive more research funding from the National Institutes of Health than any other private nursing school, and many Master’s programs are ranked first in the country.