Tens of thousands of preventable patient deaths occur due to low nurse staffing levels in hospitals. Ensuring enough direct care nurses are by patients' bedsides would drastically improve patient care. The California Nurses Association (CNA/NNOC) succeeded in winning legislation that sets minimum nurse-to-patient ratios for all of California's hospitals, creating improvements in the quality of care and in recruiting and retaining nurses. Since California enacted is ratio law in 2002, nearly 100,000 additional RNs have been licensed, a yearly average that is triple the number before the law.
Here in Pennsylvania, PASNAP is fighting to win similar legislation for the sake of patients and nurses (see below).
Facts about Nurse-to-Patient Ratios (click to download)
For more research on how ratios improve patient safety, create savings, improve the nursing shortage, see our collection of Research on Ratios.
Pennsylvania's Proposed Legislation for Nurse-to-Patient Ratios
A bill has been introduced in the State Senate that would establish minimum nurse-to-patient
ratios. Implementation and enforcement would be overseen by the
Department of Health. The proposed minimum ratios are in the chart below. Only direct care nurses can be counted in the ratios, and the ratios would cover all shifts.
Nothing would preclude any facility from implementing higher nurse
staffing levels.
Minimum Staffing
Requirements of the Pennsylvania Hospital Patient Protection Act
Senate Bill 742, Sponsored by Daylin Leach. A similar bill is in the Pennsylvania House, House Bill 147. To contact your Legislator to urge him or her to support this legislation, click here.
The
ratios shown in the box are the minimums
that each hospital must follow in its staffing plan and must be adjusted
upwards
to reflect actual patient acuity. Click here for text of current Senate bill, currently in the Pennsylvania Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee.
Type of Unit
Minimum Standard
Operating Room
Trauma Emergency Room
Active Labor Patient
Conscious Sedation
1 RN : 1 Patient
Critical Care in the ER
Critical Care
Intensive Care
Neonatal Intensive Care
Labor and Delivery
Burn Unit
Postanesthesia
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