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Press Release:

(Lansing, Michigan) The Michigan Nurses Association, the state’s largest nurses union and the voice for Michigan’s 114,000 Registered Nurses, today released a comprehensive commissioned research report prepared by Public Policy Associates, Incorporated (PPA) of Lansing, which proves that Safe Patient Care legislation, Senate Bill 1190, will save lives and cut health care costs for Michigan patients and hospitals in the future. The Safe Patient Care legislation requires hospitals to meet minimum registered patient-to-nurse staffing ratios and places limits on the practice of mandatory overtime for nurses.

“The bottom line to all the research examined to date included in this study is that Safe Patient Care legislation is good public policy because long-term, the measures will help save patient lives and health care dollars,” said Laurence S. Rosen, Ph.D., Health Care Policy Analyst for Public Policy Associates who coordinated the research. “Our research team has carefully examined the legislation and run all the numbers with a variety of variables and scenarios. The result is clear, the major benefits of the legislation include lowering patient morbidity and mortality rates, reducing the risk of medical errors, reducing patient lengths of stay in the hospital, and lowering nursing staff turnover at hospitals, all while generating significant long-term financial savings for medical facilities.”

“We have always known that Safe Patient Care legislation will save lives, and this research project proves the initiatives will save money too,” said Cheryl Johnson, RN, President of the Michigan Nurses Association. “Patients and nurses face unsafe conditions today and Michigan must work to eliminate mandatory overtime for nurses and establish minimum patient-nurse staffing ratios.”

Safe Patient Care legislation amends the Public Health Code to prohibit the practice of mandatory overtime which forces exhausted nurses in short-staffed facilities to work long consecutive hours. The bill also requires hospitals to develop staffing plans and implement minimum patient-to-nurse ratios to promote the safe care of patients throughout Michigan hospitals.

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The Michigan Nurses Association, nurses’ voice for 100 years, is the largest nurses’ union in the State of Michigan. The Michigan Nurses Association (MNA) promotes the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, fosters high standards of nursing practice, and lobbies the legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and recipients of nursing services. MNA is a constituent member of the American Nurses Association and the United American Nurses, as well as an affiliate of the AFL-CIO.

Source: Michigan Nurses Association http://www.minurses.org/news/press/2...0608_spc.shtml