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Newsletter
2006
Volume 1, No 7
Federal Legislation For Nurse
Staffing Standards For Patient
Safety and Quality Care
There
are two RNs in the state legislature. Representative Joanne
Favors (D-29)
and Senator Rosalind Kurita (D-22) are both
working on ways to raise stands for the
nursing profession and improve patient care.
This legislative
session they have sponsored or co-sponsored two bills that
affect nurses.
The first is SB 0992 / HB 1296, which is a ban on mandatory overtime in
hospitals
and nursing homes for licensed and certified staff. The second is
SB 1846 / HB 1897,
which would amend the Nurse Practice Act to include
language stating that there
should be a minimum number of nurses to meet patient needs. SB
0992/HB 1296, a ban on mandatory overtime for nurses in
hospitals and nursing homes. Each day nurses
and other health care workers are forced to work overtime.
Some are pushed past the
point of safety--putting themselves, their profession, and their
patients at risk.
Both of these bills
are steps in the right direction to address the growing
13% RN vacancy rate in Tennessee, which is causing chronic
understaffing,
high patient-to-nurse ratios, and patient care suffering
There
are real dangers caused by the short-staffing and
ever-increasing workloads
in our hospitals: increased rates of hospital-borne infections and
pressure ulcers,
longer length of patient stay,
higher readmission rates, and increased error risk that
put patients’ lives and nurses’ licenses in jeopardy. Other
professions have overtime restrictions to protect public safety
-- such as truck drivers, pilots, air traffic controllers --
it's time we make health facilities are safer also.
As you
may know, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) estimates that 44,000
to 98,000 patients
die every year due to medical errors.
Another IOM report found that nurses and other
health
care workers are more likely to make mistakes or overlook
something when they
are tired or exhausted. Many of these
medical errors are preventable.
SB 1846/HB
1897, which would amend the Nurse Practice Act to include
language
stating that there should be a minimum number of nurses to meet patient
needs.
This is a
good step in the right direction toward protecting patients and
opens the door to a discussion of what the right number of
nurses per patient is!
According
to an article by Dr. Linda Aiken, RN, in the 2002 Journal of the
American
Medical Association (JAMA), for each additional patient over
four in a registered nurse's
care, the risk of death increases by 7 percent for surgical
patients. In hospitals with
eight patients per nurse, patients have a 31 percent greater risk of dying
than those in hospitals with four patients per nurse. Click
here to read the article.
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Influenza Update
HHS
Issues Checklist for Pandemic Influenza Preparedness
The Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) has issued a
checklist to
help medical offices and ambulatory outpatient clinics gauge their
readiness for an
influenza pandemic. The checklist also will be distributed at pandemic
planning
summits throughout the country. HHS notes that the checklist
also may be useful
in other types of emergencies. For details, see:
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/medical.html.
For details
regarding new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
influenza guidelines, see the
CDC Press Release and the
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
For more regarding ANA’s “Everyone Deserves a Shot at Fighting
the Flu” campaign, see
www.nursingworld.org/news/ananews.htm.
Contact: Nancy Hughes at 301-628-5021
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Washington State Passes Safe Patient
Safety and Handling Legislation
Washington
State passed legislation (H.B. 1672) on March 8,2006 to
promote safe patient handling and prevent workplace
injuries among registered nurses and health care
workers. Passage of this bill has been a top legislative
priority for the Washington State Nurses Association
(WSNA) this session, and the victory is the result of
efforts made by the WSNA along with other nursing
organizations,
unions and the hospital association.
The
Washington Senate voted 48-0 to approve the bill, while
the Washington State House of Representatives previously
voted 85-13 in favor of the legislation. Washington
State joins Texas, Ohio and New York in having passed
legislation related to safe patient handling.
The
Washington State legislation will promote safe patient
handling and reduce injuries among health care workers
by establishing a safe patient handling committee that
will include direct care providers, and by implementing
a safe
patient handling policy. The law also will require hospitals to buy
lifting
equipment and provide staff training.
Source:
http://nursingworld.org/member/insider/2006/march.pdf |
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