Assessing the Impact of Nurse-Patient Ratios on the Quality of Healthcare Delivery in Hospitals

Posted: Jul 03, 2022

• Kimberly Bell
• Kylie Rogers
• Laura Powell

Abstract

The relationship between nurse staffing levels and healthcare quality represents one of the most critical and complex challenges in modern hospital management. Traditional research in this domain has predominantly employed statistical methods that assume linear relationships between staffing variables and patient outcomes, potentially overlooking the intricate, dynamic nature of healthcare delivery systems. This paper introduces a groundbreaking computational framework that transcends conventional analytical approaches by integrating quantum-inspired optimization algorithms with sophisticated multi-agent simulation systems to model the nuanced interactions between nurse-patient ratios and quality metrics. Healthcare quality encompasses multiple dimensions including patient safety, clinical effectiveness, and patient-centered care. Previous studies have established correlations between lower nurse-patient ratios and improved outcomes, but these investigations have largely failed to capture the non-linear threshold effects and contextual dependencies that characterize real-world hospital environments. The methodological limitations of existing research include inadequate handling of temporal dynamics, insufficient consideration of nurse skill mix variations, and oversimplified representations of patient acuity levels. Our research addresses these gaps through the development of a novel computational paradigm that models hospitals as complex adaptive systems.