Nurse Beth and Keith Carlson Talk About Staffing Ratios & NursesTakeDC

Sounds reasonable enough. However why would Medicare be billed? Not all patients are over 65 and covered by this entitlement. What about the other patients? Medicare is supposed to absorb all this cost? Also not a single republican sponsored this. What is their pushback? Also how would the ratios be set?

Great questions, thanks

Mandated minimum nurse-patient ratios apply to all Medicare-participating hospitals (not patients). Meaning if a hospital bills Medicare they must adhere to ratios. Basically all hospitals are Medicare-participating.

A simple answer as to partisanship is that Republicans tend to align with business interests, such as the American Hospital Association, while Democrats tend to align with working class people. This is a generalization, of course.

Is it possible that the AHA and the ANA contacted Republican Representative David Joyce to introduce legislation opposing mandated minimum nurse-patient ratios? I do not know. The same opposing legislation was introduced into the Senate by Democratic Senator Jeff Markley, so again, I don't know his motivation.

The ratios can be viewed here and include 1:3 on Tele, and 1:4 on MedSurg

Im a California Nurse, and I have a couple questions and comments. Who are these people organizing the rally? Have they studied the effects this is having in Ca? Not good necessarily in my hospital. Pt.s sit in the ER for 24-48 hour frequently because we can't admit them because we don't have the nurses to take them. Then they come right after shift-change, and are in worse shape than ever. Same with downgrades (Im ICU) I can sit on a pt with transfer orders all shift because we have no one with an open bed to take them; it's not all as good as it sounds. We're so desperate for nurses, I get texted almost every day off to come in for overtime, and often double time.

Thanks for sharing.

I'm a CA nurse as well. I worked prior to ratios in ICU and Tele, and there's always been a bottleneck. Bottlenecks are not caused by ratios, they precede ratios by decades.

Before ratios I had sometimes 9 patients on Tele. Today a tele nurse can only have 4 patients.

In my role now I onboard new nurses to our facility. Nurses coming to my facility from Florida, and Texas and every other state love our nurse-patient ratios. I talk to nurses a lot in Orientation and I would never practice nursing in another state.

The effects of the number of patients a nurse cares for and patient mortality are well documented in the literature. Safe staffing saves lives.

Yes, nursing is still stressful and ratios do not solve all the problems hospitals have with retention, nor are they designed to. Ratios don't address poor management, for example. But they do address public safety.

Safe Staffing: S.1063 & H.R.2392 - Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act of 2017

Hi Beth,

Thank you for bringing up this topic. I am currently a nursing student to graduate in May and i am writing a policy paper on the Safe Staffing Act of 2017. I am doing both bills. As part of this paper i will like to meet with the legislator to advocate for either one or both of the bills. I have not been able to get anyone on the phone.

I will also like to lobby in DC but it seems the lobby date is in April after i must have presented the bill to my class mates. Any suggestions on how i can advocate sooner than April 9th will be appreciated.

Also i will like to have a fact sheet and i thought i could find one from the ANA website, but i didn't. Any suggestions as to where i can find a Fact Sheet for these Bills?

Again, thank you

Great!! The ANA does not support S. 1063 and H.R.2392, titled Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act.

They support opposing legislation, as does the American Hospital Association (AHA), titled Safe Staffing for Nurse and Patient Safety Act. That's tricky, right? The titles are quite similar. Just remember that the (recommended) legislation has the word Quality in the title.

The best Talking Points I've seen are by Dr. Ruth Neese, and I think they will help you with your paper. Talking Points

To advocate at any time, find your the phone number of your Representative and 2 Senators Find Your Number by Zip Code Call and say "My name is so-and-so, I am a nursing student and a constituent. I am calling to ask (my representative) to vote Yes on S.1063 or H.R. 2392"

Senators vote on bills that start with an S., and Representatives vote on bills that start with H.R. Your phone call will be tallied and is important because politicians listen to their voting constituents :) Encourage your classmates to do the same. Best wishes.