Greater nurse autonomy associated with lower mortality and failure to rescue rates.

Context There is a growing body of evidence linking professional work environments to improved patient, personnel and organisational outcomes. Since autonomy has been identified as an important attribute of a professional work environment for enhancing patient safety, a proven association between autonomy and patient-outcomes might be expected but, until now, had not been examined. This study by Rao et al is the first study that links the concept of nurse ‘autonomy’ in all contexts—clinical autonomy, job autonomy and control over nursing practice—with patient outcomes such as 30-day mortality and failure to rescue (FTR).