PHILADELPHIA (September 22, 2025) – Penn Nursing’s Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research (CHOPR) is proud to announce that the Practice Environment Scale – Five-Item Composite (PES-5) – has been officially endorsed as a national health care quality measure. This endorsement by the Partnership for Quality Measurement (PQM) reflects the PES-5’s scientific rigor, usability, and potential to advance equitable, high-quality healthcare.

The PES-5 is a concise nurse survey tool that evaluates the quality of nurse work environments across five key domains: staffing and resource adequacy, leadership, nurses’ participation in hospital affairs, interprofessional collaboration, and a nursing philosophy of patient care. It provides hospital-level data that is actionable, reliable, and meaningful to healthcare leaders and frontline staff. The work environment supports or undermines professional nursing practice, which influences quality, safety, and both patient health and nurse job outcomes.

Having a scientifically robust tool is essential to monitor and improve work environments. National endorsement is a formal recognition that a measure meets the highest standards of validity, reliability, and utility for healthcare performance improvement. It enables broader use in federal programs, hospital quality initiatives, and policy efforts aimed at improving nurse staffing, reducing burnout, and advancing patient safety.

“We are thrilled that the PES-5 has been recognized as a national quality measure. A strong nurse work environment is critical to patient outcomes, staff well-being, and health equity,” said lead developer Eileen T. Lake, PhD, RN, FAAN, the Edith Clemmer Steinbright Professor in Gerontology, and Associate Director of CHOPR.

The PES-5 builds on two decades of research using the original Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI). It is now listed in the official PQM Measure Library. As healthcare organizations across the country seek to retain nurses, reduce burnout, and improve patient safety, the PES-5 offers a critical structural measure to guide targeted improvements and policy decisions.

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About the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing: The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing) is one of the world’s leading nursing schools. It has been ranked the #1 nursing school in the U.S. by QS University for a decade. Our Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) is among the top-ranked programs in the nation, according to the 2025 U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges rankings. Penn Nursing also consistently earns high rankings in U.S. News & World Report’s annual list of best graduate schools and is a top recipient of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for nursing research. Penn Nursing prepares nurse scientists and nurse leaders to meet the health needs of a global society through innovation in research, education, and practice. Follow Penn Nursing on: Facebook, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, & Instagram.

About the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research: The Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing is dedicated to building the actionable evidence base needed to advance effective policy, practice, and health system reforms that improve health outcomes, cultivate clinician well-being, and promote health equity across communities.