Dr Linda H. Aiken will receive a doctorate honoris causa from UVic-UCC

The University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia will confer a doctorate honoris causa on Linda H. Aiken, after the proposal by the Faculty of Health Sciences and Welfare. Aiken is a world-renowned authority on research on health services and the causes and consequences of existing nursing structures, in both the United States and the rest of the world.

The investiture ceremony will take place at 12 noon on Monday 29 May at the Aula Magna of UVic-UCC. The Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Welfare will be the sponsor of the doctorand, while the ex-dean and lecturer in the Faculty Mireia Subirana will give the Laudatio.

A scholar of nursing

Aiken was born in Florida in 1943, and is a nurse and holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Texas. She is currently the Clara M. Fagin leadership professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where she also teaches sociology and where she is the director of the Center of Health Outcomes and Policy Research. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN) and of the Royal College of Nursing in the United Kingdom - institutions which promote excellence in the practice and development of health policies.
Aiken's research, with which she has gained worldwide recognition, has focused on the relationship between health services and the causes and consequences of existing nursing structures, in both the United States and around the world. Her research is pioneering in terms of demonstrating the impact of nursing as regards staffing and training on patient outcomes.
She is co-director of Registered Nurse Forecasting (RN4CAST), a project with a budget of three million Euros funded by the European Union, which aims to improve planning and forecasting models for nurse's staffing levels; to study working conditions and the conditions in which nurses provide care, and patients' health outcomes; and to develop policies to regulate those models.
The results of this study, which was carried out between 2009 and 2011 on a sample of 32,000 nurses in 500 hospitals in 14 countries on five continents, show that for each additional surgical patient added to a nurse's workload, mortality at 30 days increases by 7%, and that for every 10% increase in graduate nurses, mortality decreases proportionately.
In another recent study, Dr Aiken's team has shown that better working conditions for nurses create higher value in care, and lower mortality rates with similar or lower costs for surgical patients at most risk. She also developed the Magnet Recognition Program®, a voluntary programme for hospital accreditation that provides recognition for high quality working environments for nurses, which means better results for the patient.

The recommendation by the National Academy of Medicine in 2010 that 80% of American nurses have a nursing degree by 2020, and the decision of the European Parliament in 2013 to promote higher education for nursing staff in the European Union, are the result of her research.

A global influence

Linda H. Aiken is currently advising the China Medical Board on the creation of a network of eight nursing schools, and is also involved in the development of the university hospital of Dubai and is leading a national study on hospital care in the United Arab Emirates. She has also worked with the American Health Service Alliance International to improve health in the countries of the former Soviet Union.
Her research career has received international recognition in the form of various awards, and she has also been invested with an honorary doctorate by the Universities of London King's College, Maryland, Florida and the State University of New York, Emory, Georgetown and Wisconsin. During her stay in Catalonia, she will also receive the highest award from the International Council of Nurses.