Proposed bill in Pennsylvania could decrease workloads on nurses

PITTSBURGH — As many as 50% of all newly licensed certified nurses in Pennsylvania leave the job within three years.

When Linda Chizmar had bad seizures last year, she ended up in the hospital for a week and a half.

“They told me it almost cost me my life,” said Chizmar.

She had this to share about the nurses who took care of her:

“They were always there for me,” she said. “If I needed anything, they always brought it to me.”

Channel 11 is looking into what the Patient Safety Act would do for Linda and other hospital patients in Pennsylvania if it becomes law.

“It would make sure that there are ratios, nurse to patient, on medical/surgical and some other units throughout the hospital,” said Senator Maria Collett, D-Montgomery.

Collett is a sponsor of one of the bills that make up the Patient Safety Act. There is no state-mandated ratio right now in Pennsylvania hospitals. She says the actual ratios would depend on the unit and the type of care being provided.

On the medical/surgical floor, the most typical unit in hospitals, each nurse would have four patients. In the ICU, nurses would have two.

“Some days two seems overwhelming. Some days one is overwhelming,” Tammy May said. May is an RN at Butler Memorial Hospital Surgical ICU and president of the Pennsylvania Independent Nurses local union.

May has 30 years of nursing experience. She also represents 480 union members at Butler Hospitals.

“Every second counts,” said May. “The more tasks you have to do, the more patients you have to care for, the harder it is on each patient.”

Tammy cites a study by a Penn Nursing professor showing for each additional patient a nurse must care for, the likelihood of them dying in the hospital within 30 days increases by 7%.

“So if they have too many patients, then they know they’re not able to give them the attention they need, then they may choose to leave the bedside,” said May.

Tammy says there is a shortage of bedside nurses at her hospital. But there’s a grid system in place now that gives some guidelines for the number of nurses needed.

“It does work and it does help and it has brought some of our nurses back to the bedside,” said May.

“We know that putting these government-mandated ratios in place won’t suddenly make nurses appear,” said Nicole Stallings, President & CEO of the Hospital and Health System Association of Pennsylvania.

Stallings represents 235 hospitals across Pennsylvania. They are against the Patient Safety Act.

“It would really force hospitals into an impossible choice: they would have to either break the law and risk their license because they can’t meet the mandate or they would have to close beds and reduce services,” said Stallings.

If the bill passes, a hospital would have to pay a fine if it is not following through on staffing requirements.

“We worked with rural hospitals so that some of those fines being paid would be directed toward rural healthcare,” said Senator Collett.

Instead of the Patient Safety Act, Stallings thinks other policies like making education more affordable or finding more teachers for interested nursing students would increase the number of nurses in Pennsylvania.

She says some hospitals are putting teams around nurses to help with their tasks.

“So that nurses can do the things, the patient care tasks, that they are uniquely specialized and trained to do, but then they can delegate other tasks to other members of the care team,” said Stallings.

California is the only state that has a law for nurse-patient ratios.

A National Institutes of Health study in 2010 compared California to Pennsylvania and one other state without legislation.

It found California nurses cared for one less patient and that the lower ratio was associated with significantly lower mortality.

California also had better nurse retention than the other states.

Right now, the Patient Safety Act is sitting in a Pennsylvania Senate committee after passing the House in the summer. It would need to be called up for a vote in committee before going to the full state senate for a vote.

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