Nurse groups at odds over ratios, workloads

The brand-new American Association of Registered Nurses has split off from the American Nursing Association over its promotion of mandatory staffing ratios as a way to alleviate the crushing workloads that it says are driving many nurses out of the profession.

Tallahassee Democrat, March 27, 2002

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/business/2939695.htm

I disagree with the premise of this article---ANA has been on the forfront of geting Mandatory overtime prohibited in several states----ALL of them states without AARN members. AND it is ANA that worked with Congress to introduce Mandatory overtime work restriction legislation under Medicare. Karen

this will be interesting to see what, if anything, happens with this organization.

don't know if the AARN is the "newest" answer to our staffing/rations problems, but certainly, something must be done to protect our patients and licenses.

Karen, in the article I posted about patients in hospitals with nursing unions having better outcomes after AMI than non-unionized hospitals, it stated that there are only 35% of hospitals in California are unionized.

The thing I have a problem with concerning ratios is that it doesn't take into account ACUITY. In the CV-ICU I work in, we are now caring for patients who are so much sicker than they were even 2 years ago. I can see these ratios in 2-5 years as being impossible; the same as today, with hospitals sticking with the current numbers no matter what.

The real question about Nurse patient ratios is not that they exist nor is it that they don't include acuity. The question is who will decide what the ratio will be. The AHA executives beleive that Nurse can take ideally an infinite numbers of patients as this would maximize profits while Nurses beleive that they should decide the number based upon what is safe for the patient and quality of care. It's a question of POWER. Since all forms of health care facilites do not want the Nurses to have any power. The only avenue to enforce change is the political and unionization track. If nursing is going to continue to grow as a profession it must be able to shape its own scope of safe practise. Ideally this will be in the Board Rooms of the health care businesses, ie RNs are independent members of the board of directors. This will not probably happen soon so its political activism and/or Unionization are the tools that must be used in order to acheive some sanity with regard working conditionsand the safe delivery of Nursing Care in the Health care industries.