Sean Clarke

Faculty

Sean Clarke Headshot

Sean Clarke

PhD RN FAAN

Ursula Springer Professor in Nursing Leadership

1 212 998 5264

433 First Ave
New York, NY 10010
United States

Sean Clarke, PhD, RN, FAAN is the Ursula Springer Professor in Nursing Leadership at the NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. He is a nursing health services researcher with interests in quality and safety of nursing care, nurse workforce issues, management of nursing services, as well as questions related to health systems changes and their impacts on the nursing profession. He has taught nursing leadership and professional issues, health policy, research, and clinical science courses in universities in the United States, Canada, and beyond. He currently the Editor-in-Chief of Nursing Outlook, the official journal of the American Academy of Nursing and serves on a number of editorial boards and grant review panels.

Prof. Clarke is currently co-principal investigator of Towards Magnet 3.0, a multimethod evaluation study of the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Magnet Recognition Program, and principal investigator of the evaluation of the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation’s $51 million 5- year Nursing Initiative that is supporting workforce strategies in 13 hospitals caring for vulnerable populations in New York State.

Prior to joining the faculty at NYU Meyers, Clarke was a tenured faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Toronto, and McGill University and held endowed chairs and codirected and directed research centers and other initiatives at those institutions before serving as Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs at Boston College’s Connell School of Nursing from 2014 to 2018. He served as Executive Vice Dean at NYU Meyers from 2019 to 2024.

Among his many honors, Clarke was named a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing in 2006. He has held visiting and honorary appointments at universities around the world, and in 2025 received the Academy’s Civitas Award, which recognizes extraordinary dedication to excellence in promoting quality care.

Post-MS certificate, Adult Critical Care Nurse Practitioner, University of Pennsylvania
PhD, Nursing, McGill University
MSc(A), Nursing, McGill University
BA, Psychology, Carleton University
BSc, Biochemistry-Nutrition, University of Ottawa

Acute Care
Adult Health
Health Services Research
Health Outcomes
Health Policy
Nursing Leadership
Nursing Professional Issues
Nurse Occupational Health
Nursing workforce

American Nurses Association
American Academy of Nursing
Sigma Theta Tau International

Civitas Award, American Academy of Nursing (2025)
Creative Teaching Award, Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto (2011)
Dean’s Award for Undergraduate Teaching, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (2007)
Class of 1965 25th Reunion Term Chair, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing [for enduring contributions to undergraduate education] (2006)
Fellow, American Academy of Nursing (2006)
Junior Faculty Research Award, Biobehavioral and Health Sciences Division School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania (2006)
Article of the Year, Academy Health [Academy for Health Services Research and Health Policy] for Aiken, Clarke et al., JAMA, October 23/30, 2002 (2003)
American Academy of Nursing Media Award for coverage of Aiken, Clarke et al., JAMA, October 23/30, 2002 (2003)
American Academy of Nursing Media Award for coverage of Aiken, Clarke, et al. Health Affairs, 2001 (2002)
Induction into Sigma Theta Tau, Xi Chapter (1999)

Effects of hospital care environment on patient mortality and nurse outcomes

Aiken, L. H., Clarke, S., Sloane, D. M., Lake, E. T., & Cheney, T. (2008). In Journal of Nursing Administration (Vols. 38, Issues 5, pp. 223-229). 10.1097/01.NNA.0000312773.42352.d7
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OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to analyze the net effects of nurse practice environments on nurse and patient outcomes after accounting for nurse staffing and education. BACKGROUND: Staffing and education have well-documented associations with patient outcomes, but evidence on the effect of care environments on outcomes has been more limited. METHODS: Data from 10,184 nurses and 232,342 surgical patients in 168 Pennsylvania hospitals were analyzed. Care environments were measured using the practice environment scales of the Nursing Work Index. Outcomes included nurse job satisfaction, burnout, intent to leave, and reports of quality of care, as well as mortality and failure to rescue in patients. RESULTS: Nurses reported more positive job experiences and fewer concerns with care quality, and patients had significantly lower risks of death and failure to rescue in hospitals with better care environments. CONCLUSION: Care environment elements must be optimized alongside nurse staffing and education to achieve high quality of care.

Influencing health policy for the imminent health-care crisis : A task for informed citizens, proactive nurses, and committed researchers

Clarke, S., & Gottlieb, L. N. (2008). In Canadian Journal of Nursing Research (Vols. 40, Issues 4, pp. 5-9).
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An international hospital outcomes research agenda focused on nursing : Lessons from a decade of collaboration

Clarke, S., & Aiken, L. H. (2008). In Journal of Clinical Nursing (Vols. 17, Issues 24, pp. 3317-3323). 10.1111/j.1365-2702.2008.02638.x
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Aims. To describe the origins, design and outcomes of an international hospital outcomes collaboration focused on nursing issues. Background. Across countries with different cultures and histories, nursing and healthcare leaders face similar issues with respect to workforce supply, quality and safety of care and financial constraints. Until researchers began using common research protocols to investigate structure, and outcomes variables in hospital nursing across countries, studying the aspects of work environments most important to patients and nurses in large numbers of hospitals was very difficult, if not impossible. Method. Review/essay. Conclusions. The international collaborations discussed in this article led by the University of Pennsylvania have found remarkable similarities in the experiences of hospital nurses across countries in terms of positive and negative aspects of their work, sizeable differences across hospitals within countries in working conditions and investments in high-quality practice environments, and consistent evidence of connections between modifiable features of nurses' work environments and both patient well-being and factors influencing workforce stability. Relevance to clinical practice. International research collaborations allow benchmarking of countries and facilities within countries on work environment factors that are important to the provision of high quality nursing care. Results of this ongoing research initiative have helped strengthen the case that optimal management of practice environments for nurses in hospitals and other settings are a key strategy for optimising patient outcomes.

The nurse shortage : Where we stand and where we're headed

Clarke, S., & Cheung, R. B. (2008). In Nursing Management (Vols. 39, Issues 3, pp. 22-27). 10.1097/01.NUMA.0000313092.89271.98
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Whether it's already touching your facility or its impact is still to come, this crisis will test your skills as a manager. Understanding what's driving the shortage and what's predicted will help you choose the best strategies for addressing its causes and dealing with its consequences.

Nurse staffing and patient outcomes : getting to the heart of the matter in research, practice, and policy.

Clarke, S. (2008). In The Pennsylvania nurse (Vols. 63, Issues 4, pp. 8-9).
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Nursing care and patient outcomes : International evidence

Cheung, R. B., Aiken, L. H., Clarke, S., & Sloane, D. M. (2008). In Enfermeria Clinica (Vols. 18, Issue 1, pp. 35-40). 10.1016/S1130-8621(08)70691-0
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Countries across the globe are experiencing nursing shortages. In hospitals, supportive practice environments have positive effects on both nurse and patient outcomes. However, these relationships have been established primarily in the US. International studies of the effects of nurse staffing levels and the practice environment on nurse outcomes and the quality of care mirror the findings from the US, thus raising these issues to the international level. The solutions that have been successful in the US for improving the practice environment and patient outcomes are solutions that should be successful in any country, thus putting them on a global scale. The Magnet hospital program is one model that has been shown to improve nurse and patient outcomes and is one solution to the shortage of hospital nurses.

Rationing of nursing care and its relationship to patient outcomes : The Swiss extension of the International Hospital Outcomes Study

Schubert, M., Glass, T. R., Clarke, S., Aiken, L. H., Schaffert-Witvliet, B., Sloane, D. M., & De Geest, S. (2008). In International Journal for Quality in Health Care (Vols. 20, Issues 4, pp. 227-237). 10.1093/intqhc/mzn017
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Objectives. To explore the association between implicit rationing of nursing care and selected patient outcomes in Swiss hospitals, adjusting for major organizational variables, including the quality of the nurse practice environment and the level of nurse staffing. Rationing was measured using the newly developed Basel Extent of Rationing of Nursing Care (BERNCA) instrument. Additional data were collected using an adapted version of the International Hospital Outcomes Study questionnaire. Design. Multi-hospital cross-sectional surveys of patients and nurses. Setting. Eight Swiss acute care hospitals Participants. Nurses (1338) and patients (779) on 118 medical, surgical and gynecological units. Main outcome measures. Patient satisfaction, nurse-reported medication errors, patient falls, nosocomial infections, pressure ulcers and critical incidents involving patients over the previous year. Results. Generally, nurses reported rarely having omitted any of the 20 nursing tasks listed in the BERNCA over their last 7 working days. However, despite relatively low levels, implicit rationing of nursing care was a significant predictor of all six patient outcomes studied. Although the adequacy of nursing resources was a significant predictor for most of the patient outcomes in unadjusted models, it was not an independent predictor in the adjusted models. Low nursing resource adequacy ratings were a significant predictor for five of the six patient outcomes in the unadjusted models, but not in the adjusted ones. Conclusion. As a system factor in acute general hospitals, implicit rationing of nursing care is an important new predictor of patient outcomes and merits further study.

Relationships between registered nurse staffing, processes of nursing care, and nurse-reported patient outcomes in chronic hemodialysis units.

Thomas-Hawkins, C., Flynn, L., & Clarke, S. (2008). In Nephrology nursing journal : journal of the American Nephrology Nurses' Association (Vols. 35, Issues 2, pp. 123-130, 145; quiz 131).
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Little attention has been given to the effects of registered nurse (RN) staffing and processes of nursing care on patient outcomes in hemodialysis units. This research examined the effects of patient-to-RN ratios and necessary tasks left undone by RNs on the likelihood of nurse-reported frequent occurrences of adverse patient events in chronic hemodialysis units. Study findings revealed that high patient-to-RN ratios and increased numbers of tasks left undone by RNs were associated with an increased likelihood of frequent occurrences of dialysis hypotension, skipped dialysis treatments, shortened dialysis treatments, and patient complaints in hemodialysis units. These findings indicate that federal, state, and dialysis organization policies must foster staffing structures and processes of care in dialysis units that effectively utilize the invaluable skills and services of professional, registered nurses.

Solving the leadership dilemma : where will nursing's next leaders come from?

Carrick, L., Clarke, S., & Thompson, J. (2008). In The Pennsylvania nurse (Vols. 63, Issue 1, pp. 12-13).
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Adopt outcomes-focused strategies into your practice

Clarke, S., & Carrick, L. A. (2007). In Nursing Management (Vols. 38, Issue 1, pp. 50-52). 10.1097/00006247-200701000-00015
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