A new study on nurse staffing levels was hailed by the California Nurses Association on Tuesday as proof that the state's nursing-ratio law is saving lives. If similar laws were enacted in such states as Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the number of patient deaths in those states could be reduced by as much as 14 percent, according to the study conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and published in the journal Health Services Research.

The new health insurance reform package took a few steps toward increasing access to insurance and controlling costs, argues National Nurses United spokesman Chuck Idelson, but it did little to improve quality of care, one of the major challenges facing would-be reformers. But research published today in the journal HSR (Health Services Research) concludes that increasing the number of nurses in a hospital can do a lot to boost the chances that patients will survive–and to encourage experienced nurses to stick with the job at a time when many hospitals suffer from nurse shortages and high turnover.

California’s nurse-to-patient staffing law reduces deaths from common surgeries, allows nurses to spend more time with patients and helps hospitals retain nurses, a study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania concludes. California’s landmark law requires minimum nurse-to-patient ratios for specific units in all general acute-care hospitals. It was signed in 1999, but ratios were phased in from 2004 through 2008

California's law limiting the number of patients that can be assigned to a nurse has resulted in fewer deaths and a belief among the state's nurses that they were able to provide better care, according to the first comprehensive evaluation of the landmark legislation. The study by the University of Pennsylvania, published today in the policy journal Health Services Research, compared deaths from common surgeries in California in 2006, two years after the law was enacted, to surgical deaths in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Ten to 13 percent fewer surgical patients in New Jersey and Pennsylvania would die if hospitals in those states had as many nurses as California law requires, according to a University of Pennsylvania study published Tuesday.