Aim: This study aims to analyse the employment effect of reformed nurse staffing policy which is the “Integrated Nursing and Care Service” scheme that was introduced by the Korean government.Design: Economic evaluation study focusing on employment effect.Method: An input–output model was used to estimate the employment‐inducing effect of the new staffing policy. The analysed data of 26,381 beds, of 400 hospitals that are participated in the Integrated Nursing and Care Service scheme were retrieved from the Korean National Health Insurance claims database.Results: The job‐creation effect of the new staffing policy was estimated to be 48.5 persons per USD 1 million expenditure, which means 28,154 persons were employed when USD 580.15 million expenditures was paid to the hospitals by the National Health Insurance Service. In addition, the policy had an employment‐inducing effect which is as high as 3.09~6.07 times higher than that of similar industries and all industries.

Introduction: Nurses, as frontline healthcare professionals, play a crucial role in ensuring patient safety, making their ability to speak up imperative. However, there are limited studies categorizing nurses based on their speaking‐up behaviors and comparing their organizational characteristics. This study aimed to identify patterns of nurses’ speaking‐up behaviors and examine differences in organizational cultures, teamwork climates, and working conditions according to these patterns.Methods: A cross‐sectional survey was conducted, involving 597 nurses directly participating in nursing care in Korean hospitals. The Speaking Up about Patient Safety Questionnaire (SUPS‐Q), Nursing Organizational Culture Questionnaire, and Safety Attitude Questionnaire‐Korean version (SAQ‐K) were employed to measure nurses’ speaking‐up‐related behaviors, organizational culture, teamwork climate, and working conditions. Cluster analysis was used to identify clusters of nurses based on their speaking‐up‐related behavior. Differences in nursing organizational culture, teamwork climate, and working conditions among clusters were analyzed using one‐way analyses of variance.Results: Three clusters of nurses were identified based on their speaking‐up‐related behaviors. Cluster 1 (35%) showed high perceived concerns, moderate withholding, and speaking up, while Cluster 2 (37%) had moderate concerns, low withholding, and high speaking up. Cluster 3 (28%) had moderate concerns but low withholding and speaking up. Clinical experience significantly differed among clusters, with less experienced nurses predominantly in Cluster 1. Cluster 2 had the most collaborative culture, best teamwork climate, and working conditions.Conclusion: Ensuring patient safety requires nurses to speak up about patient safety concerns. Creating safe working environments and fostering an organizational culture that prioritizes patient safety are essential steps in promoting nurses’ willingness to speak up about patient safety.

Introduction Optimal nurse-to-patient assignment plays a crucial role in healthcare delivery, with direct implications for patient outcomes and the workloads of nursing staff. However, this process is highly intricate, involving a multitude of factors that must be carefully considered. The application of a clinical decision support system (CDSS) to support nursing decision-making can have a positive impact not only on patient outcomes but also on nursing efficiency. This scoping review aims to explore the implementation of CDSS in the decision process of optimal nurse-patient assignment (NPA). Methods and analysis This scoping review will follow a stage of the Arksey and O’Malley framework. It will also be based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis extension for Scoping Reviews’ (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. The research primarily aims to identify studies’ findings on applying CDSSs in the NPA process. Hence, academic and grey literature articles from six international bibliographic databases (ie, MEDLINE via PubMed, EMBASE via Ovid, CINAHL via EBSCOhost, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global) will be considered, where search strategies will be tailored to each database. The literature search will be conducted in February 2024, and the identified studies will be independently screened by two primary reviewers. After extracting data, the qualitative data will be analysed thematically, and the quantitative data will be subjected to descriptive statistics. The research is scheduled to conclude in December 2024. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval is not required as primary data will not be collected in this study. The findings of this study will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations.

This study aimed to compare the number of assigned and appropriate patients per nurse in integrated nursing care service wards and analyze factors associated with the gap. For this cross‐sectional secondary analysis, data were collected from surveys of 2312 nurses and institutional data from their affiliated 106 hospitals in Korea. We used the Wilcoxon signed‐rank test and t‐test to compare the number of patients assigned to nurses with the number they considered appropriate. We used ratio analysis for measuring the gap between these numbers, and robust regression to evaluate the factors affecting this gap. The results found an average gap of 1.45, indicating that the reported number of assigned patients per nurse was 1.45 times higher than the appropriate number. Gender, employment type, wage satisfaction, workload, overtime work, and hospital level of care were identified as factors associated with the gap. Findings suggest that the current nurse staffing standard should be revised to consider nurses' professional judgments of appropriate staffing levels and adopt policies that reduce nurses' workload.