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Matthew McHugh Named to International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame

LDI Senior Fellow Cited by Nursing School Dean for “Extraordinary Accomplishments”

April 7, 2023

By:

Hoag Levins

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LDI Senior Fellow and Penn School of Nursing Professor Matthew McHugh, PhD, RN, has been named to the International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame. He will be inducted at the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing’s 34th International Nursing Research Congress in in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in July.

McHugh is a Professor of Nursing, and Director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research (CHOPR) at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

The annual Sigma Theta Tau Hall of Fame appointments honor researchers whose work has achieved significant and sustained broad recognition for its impact on the nursing profession and on the population of patients it serves. Established a century ago, the invitation-only honor society is the world’s second largest nursing organization with 135,000 members and 530 chapters worldwide.

“Extraordinary Accomplishments”

In a press statement, Penn Nursing Dean and LDI Senior Fellow Antonia Villarruel, PhD, RN, hailed McHugh’s’s induction as recognition of his… “extraordinary accomplishments. His impactful research has led to important practice and policy changes locally, nationally, and internationally to support the ability of nurses to positively drive good patient outcomes.”

McHugh’s research has demonstrated in large-scale studies that almost all policy mandated healthcare quality performance measures are associated with nursing care and nurse resources. His work with multiple populations and health systems shows that a broad range of patient outcomes are better in institutions where nurses care for fewer patients, where a higher proportion of nurses have bachelor’s degrees, and where the quality of the nurse work environment is supportive of professional nursing practice. His research shows that nursing care is a major driver in improving patient satisfaction and reducing hospital mortality and failure-to-rescue rates, readmissions, poor glycemic control and other adverse outcomes, and the high cost of low value care including excessive Intensive Care Unit (ICU) use.

International Impact

The impact of his work is international. McHugh serves as a Scientific Project Manager on the massive Magnet4Europe Initiative (M4E), the largest hospital randomized controlled trial and implementation science project of its kind ever attempted, involving 132 facilities in Europe and the U.S.