I may be beating a dead horse.....but utterly bewildered!

[OhioCCRN]

I'll keep it short...

Large Academic medical center w/ ridiculous acuity

If Press HCAHP scores are low because of not enough staff...

How does it solve the problem to further cut staffing?

*TODAY* 3 RN's were lowed. The remaining RN's had multiple patients/ICU tranfers/discharges etc....

When management was questioned, they stated " Well you have to do better. we will keep cutting staff until the scores improve....then we can staff to grid"

are any other hospitals being this crazy?

*whine vent *

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

I do not see how a union can help a hospital make or spend more money, increase employee/patient satisfaction or guarantee quality care. They generally protect the unproductive worker. Nurses need to be involved with their state nursing association and get laws passed protecting patients from insufficient staffing, mandatory overtime, whistleblowing---hospitals may need to have less chiefs and more Indians.

Then you've never worked in a hospital with an effective nurses' union. I have, and I can tell you it made all the difference in the world to have good staffing, excellent on-unit clinical educators, good UAP to do the stocking and errands and general helping out, and a great secretarial gang. All part of our contract; it made us more competitive to hire good nurses, and the reputation of the unit and care there made it so we rarely had an empty bed. We started our own union because the state nursing association sorta forgot that our contract was up two years previously and never came back to help us when area hospitals were eating our lunch for hiring staff (our pay and benefits were the lowest in the area). And we won, and won big.

And BTW, don't you know that getting involved with most state nursing associations means that they act as the agent for the staff when contract time rolls around? That's, like, a union? I wouldn't in my hopes on mandatory staffing levels to solve all your problems anytime soon, but a good union can show its worth at the next contract period.

[wooh, BSN, RN]

We've got the same thing going on. Until we get our scores up, they won't give us more staff. It apparently makes sense if you have an MBA. Us lowly RNs just don't have the business acumen to make sense of it.

[gcupid]

I do not see how a union can help a hospital make or spend more money, increase employee/patient satisfaction or guarantee quality care. They generally protect the unproductive worker. Nurses need to be involved with their state nursing association and get laws passed protecting patients from insufficient staffing, mandatory overtime, whistleblowing---hospitals may need to have less chiefs and more Indians.

How has not having a union been working in the nursing profession for the majority?

Call me crazy but if protecting the occasional unproductive worker is the worst thing that can happen out of a union that could potentially save millions from sentinel events, Hospital Acquired Infections etc. by providing better working conditions, wages, & benefits, I am all for it.

[Lev, MSN, RN, NP]

At my hospital, all new nurse hiring has to be approved by the hospital president!