ALLEVIATE NURSE SHORTAGE

By Liana Pasqual at API Healthcare

Effective staffing can prevent nurse burnout and result in better patient care – or that is what lawmakers are hoping as more propose safe staffing legislation. According to a column in The Wall Street Journal, several states and the District of Columbia are currently considering bills that would require hospitals to maintain minimum nurse staffing levels. Groups such as the Massachusetts Nurses Association have taken steps to ensure safe staffing initiatives are on upcoming ballots, and nursing groups across the country continue to advocate for official minimum nurse-patient ratios. According to FierceHealthcare, lawmakers are trying to pass safe staffing legislation to prevent a growing problem from escalating out of control – the nation’s nursing shortage.

Many hospitals already utilize nursing staffing solutions to ensure enough nurses are scheduled at peak patient times. These tools help health systems optimize their workforce’s performance and productivity while also making sure hospitals don’t overspend on labor costs. They allow hospitals to maintain adequate staffing levels without sacrificing costs or patient safety. However, lawmakers are taking a more judicial approach to the issue.

FierceHealthcare reported safe staffing legislation would require hospitals to have a certain number of nurses during peak times. Many hospitals are worried about the drain additional staff will have on their resources. Yet with more patients set to enter the health system once the Affordable Care Act becomes fully implemented, how else can hospitals not only provide great patient care, but ensure there are enough nurses on staff to simply provide care for each patient?

The nursing-shortage challenge A recent Becker’s Hospital Review article noted a nursing shortage is an ongoing obstacle that many hospital executives worry will interfere with patient safety. All of Becker’s top patient safety issues cited in the article revolved around the hospital workforce. From having adequate communications and preventing patient infections to ensuring the right patient receives the correct medications, CNOs and other hospital administrators are continually worried about maintaining a safe healthcare environment for patients.

This is going to become increasingly difficult throughout 2014 if hospital decision-makers are unable to hire and maintain adequate nurse staffing levels. Hospitals are currently getting ready for healthcare reform to come into full effect, and with those challenges still ahead of health systems, a nursing shortage is only going to further complicate matters. It’s already a struggle for many nurses to deliver great care when they are short staffed during peak patient times, and safe staffing legislation may help mitigate this issue.

Are nurse-patient ratios the key? The column in the Journal noted safe staffing legislation would help hospitals more than it would hurt them. Employing and maintaining hospital-nurse staffing minimums may cause hospital readmissions to decline, fewer patients may contract an infection while in the health system and medical errors may drop. However, hospitals continue to cite high labor costs and patient valleys, or when there aren’t enough patients to need high staffing levels, as reasons against safe staffing legislation.

The Journal column suggested hospitals optimize their workflows and patient scheduling to ensure there are enough nurses on staff at the right times. FierceHealthcare reported hospital leadership is essential to the implementation of workforce changes as healthcare decision-makers must lead the transition. Safe staffing legislation may still be needed even if these measures are met, however, in order to keep hospitals accountable. Minimum nurse-patient ratios are essential to maintaining the hospital’s bottom line, even though hiring more nurses costs health systems in the short term. Combined with nurse staffing and scheduling solutions, safe staffing legislation can help to prevent patients and hospitals from feeling the negative effects of a nursing shortage.

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