Nursing care and patient outcomes: international evidence.

Countries across the globe are experiencing nursing shortages. In hospitals, supportive practice environments have positive effects on both nurse and patient outcomes. However, these relationships have been established primarily in the US. International studies of the effects of nurse staffing levels and the practice environment on nurse outcomes and the quality of care mirror the findings from the US, thus raising these issues to the international level. The solutions that have been successful in the US for improving the practice environment and patient outcomes are solutions that should be successful in any country, thus putting them on a global scale. The Magnet hospital program is one model that has been shown to improve nurse and patient outcomes and is one solution to the shortage of hospital nurses.