Safe Staffing Means Quality Care

 By Senator Allyson Y. Schwartz

You've probably seen articles popping up in dailies across the nation warning us about what we already know: The nursing shortage is about to get worse. In fact, the Bureau of Health Professionals recently predicated that the nursing shortage for this year will be six percent and will reach 29 percent by 2020. According to the report, the total number of registered nurses graduating from associated degree programs, baccalaureate programs and hospital-based programs shrank from 96,610 in 1995 to 71, 475 in 2000. Compounding this, in an effort to cut back on costs, hospital administrators are reducing the number of licensed nurses on duty. One PNA member said that inadequate staffing – more than any other factor – is what is driving nurses from hospitals. What is the result? Compromised care and patients being put at risk.

Another report, this one in the New England Journal of Medicine, confirmed the link between professional nurse staffing levels and patient outcomes. The research found that in hospitals with higher nurse staffing levels: patient ratios, length of stay was shorter, and complication rates were lower than in hospitals with lower staffing levels. 

I introduced the Safe Staffing and Quality Care Act, a bill that seeks to ensure the safety and health of Pennsylvanians in hospitals by requiring greater public oversight of staffing levels and mandating adequate and safe staffing by well-trained, professional nurses. This legislation would require:

1. Hospital administrators to submit staffing plans that set daily nurse staffing levels in specific hospital units based on the severity of patient illness and the training of personnel required for quality care. These staffing levels would be developed with the input of the hospital's nursing staff.
    
2. Hospital administrators to disclose to the public staffing levels including posting the hospital staffing plan in each nursing unit.
    
3. Hospital administrators to submit reports to the Department of Health to ensure those plans are adequate to protect patients, and that the hospitals comply with their own plans.
    
4. The Department of Health to create three initiatives to encourage recruitment, retention, and education of nurses.

Passage of this legislation would positively impact the quality of care patients receive in hospitals and would ease the working conditions that have driven our hard-working and dedicated nurses out of hospitals. I urge you to contact your State Senator and ask that he or she stand up for quality care in hospitals by supporting the passage of SB 1494. 

To show your support, please complete the Bill Support Form