Safe Staffing Facebook Live Event Part 3 - Get the Facts About Opposing Legislation

[tnbutterfly - Mary]

As nurses, we've all worked short-staffed. At the end of the shift, not only do we feel exhausted, both mentally and physically, but we feel guilty about the lack of quality care our patients received. We do the best we can, but when nurses are forced to care for so many patients, there is only so much we can humanly do.

Nurses have been dealing with this for years. Patients have experienced the results of unsafe staffing. There have been unnecessary patient deaths directly related to lack of timely intervention as a result of unsafe staffing As ratios. Although this has not happened overnight, action needs to be taken NOW.

Legislation has been proposed to address the unsafe staffing issues. Did you know there are currently 2 sets of bills in the House and Senate that are going before the legislators? While the bills have similar names, they are vastly different.

Beth Hawkes (Nurse Beth) and Keith Carlson (Nurse Keith) will be discussing the facts about and differences between the 2 sets of opposing legislation during a Facebook Live Event hosted by allnurses on their Nurses Rock Facebook page on March 28th at 8:30 pm EST. This will be an interactive event, so come with your questions. It is very important that you know the facts so you can make an informed decision and also educate and encourage your legislators to make an informed vote. Let all your nursing friends know about this important event.

#NursesTakeDC Event

As a force of more than 3 million nurses, we need to speak up and be heard. We need change NOW. Nurses from across our great nation will converge upon the nation's capital in Washington, DC on April 25th and 26th, making their voices heard about staffing ratios and patient safety. Join us there, call your legislators, LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD.

If you missed the first 2 Facebook live events, go to the following links for summaries and the videos. Please feel free to post your questions below. We hope to see you this next Facebook Live Event on Wednesday, March 28th at 8:30 pm EST. This event is being hosted by allnurses.com on their Nurses Rock Facebook page

Share this information with your friends. We want to have a great turnout.

Nurse Beth and Keith Carlson Talk About Staffing Ratios & NursesTakeDC

Safe Nurse Staffing FB Live Video #2 - How to Influence Your Legislators

Show your support for this movement to mandate safer staffing ratios. Buy the official allnurses Safe Nurse Staffing t-shirt created by the allnurses staff and our own cartoonist. To order your shirt, go to the allnurses store.

[MunoRN, RN]

The ANA's version has actually already been around awhile at the state level in multiple states, and it serves no purpose whatsoever in improving staffing, which is why the American Hospital Association is such a vocal supporter of the ANA's safe staffing bills.

All the ANA bills require is that hospitals create committees to come up with recommendations for safe staffing levels, hospitals are then completely free to simply ignore those recommendations. The ANA bills also require hospitals to post their staffing levels in terms of actual vs matrix, but again all they have to do is say their matrix is to have half as many nurses as they normally use.

[icu/don]

I have a question about why the ratios place Skilled Nursing Facility at 1:5? I was under the understanding that this bill only applied to acute care hospitals. Does this ratio only apply to Skilled Nursing Facilities within Acute Care Hospitals?

Not all Skilled Nursing Facilities are alike. When I was director of nursing for 8 years, we barely qualified as "skilled nursing" under California laws. We did not do any rehab (Medicare) and only had long term Medicaid residents. This meant no IV's and I even had a state waiver that the DON was the only RN required for 5 days a week 8 hours a day.

When California attempted to convert the nursing ratios to skilled nursing it was basically a disaster. They had to try to divide the ratios into shifts. I can't remember the exact numbers but it was something like this:

Night shift-1:30 (Licensed Nurses) & 1:15 (CNA)

Evening shift- 1:15 (Licensed Nurses)

Day shift- 1:10 (Licensed Nurses) Can't remember other CNA ratios.

This meant that I would technically have needed 3 licensed nurses at night for my 33 bed facility for night shift. If I only had 2 nurses they would be over ratio on their lunch breaks.

These ratios actually got put into Title 22 briefly with a side note saying that it was not enforceable because the regulations affected the budget and their was no approval for Medi-Cal to reimburse based on these ratios.

So my concern for the current law is that I feel that the "Skilled Nursing Facility" ratio of 1:5 is very unrealistic even in a more acute setting.