Patient Safety: Saving Lives and Saving Money
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This is a crosspost from LMPartnership.org by John August, Executive Director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.
Unions that are seeking to transform the role of frontline workers in health care organizations know that real change will take more than a high level of employee engagement. It will also take a different type of relationship between managers, physicians and workers. Real, sustainable change will require union members, managers and physicians to commit themselves to a social dialogue that creates more value for the patients and communities we serve.
This past week, the president of the United States announced a new partnership. Here’s a summary from healthcare.gov:
Doctors, nurses and other health care providers in America work incredibly hard to deliver the best care possible to their patients. Unfortunately, an alarming number of patients are harmed by medical mistakes in the health care system and far too many die prematurely as a result.
The Obama Administration has launched the Partnership for Patients: Better Care, Lower Costs, a new public-private partnership that will help improve the quality, safety, and affordability of health care for all Americans. The Partnership for Patients brings together leaders of major hospitals, employers, physicians, nurses, and patient advocates along with state and federal governments in a shared effort to make hospital care safer, more reliable, and less costly. Read the rest of this entry »
New Patient Safety Initiative Could Save 60,000 Lives
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More than 60,000 lives could be saved over the next three years under a new initiative announced today by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that would stop millions of preventable injuries and complications in hospital patient care over the next three years.
Already, Sebelius said, more than 500 hospitals, as well as physicians and nurses groups, consumer groups and employers have pledged their commitment to the new Partnership for Patients initiative.
Speaking at a Washington, D.C., press conference, along with representatives from major hospitals, employers, unions, health plans, physicians, nurses and patient advocates, she said:
Americans go the hospital to get well, but millions of patients are injured because of preventable complications and accidents. Working closely with hospitals, doctors, nurses, patients, families and employers, we will support efforts to help keep patients safe, improve care, and reduce costs. Working together, we can help eliminate preventable harm to patients.
The two main goals of the Partnership for Patients are to keep hospital patients from getting injured or sicker and help patients heal without complication. The initiative will target all forms of harm to patients such as preventing adverse drug reactions, pressure ulcers, childbirth complications and surgical site infections.
12,000 Minnesota Nurses Give Strike Notice
Some 12,000 nurses in the Twin Cities could be out on strike soon after the July 4 holiday. Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) filed notice June 25 they will strike if there is no contract settlement by July 6 in contract talks with 14 hospitals.
The nurses are pushing management to include patient-staff ratios in hospital contracts. Currently, understaffing or inappropriate staffing is making it difficult, if not impossible, to provide good patient care, the nurses said.
Minnesota Nurses Stage 24-Hour Strike for Patient Safety
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Workday Minnesota editor Barb Kucera sends this account of yesterday’s one-day strike by 12,000 Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) nurses over patient care issues in contract negotiations. In California, a similar strike by some 13,000 California Nurses Association (CNA) nurses was blocked by a court order. Click here for more. Both MNA and CNA are affiliated with National Nurse United (NNU).
Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association walked the picket lines at 14 Twin Cities hospitals, in the largest nurses’ strike in U.S. history.
The walkout by 12,000 nurses started at 7 a.m. yesterday at facilities owned by six hospital systems: Health East, Allina, Methodist, Children’s, North Memorial and Fairview. The 24-hour strike ended this morning.
1,900 Texas RNs Vote to Join NNU Affiliate
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More than 1,900 registered nurses at five Texas hospitals have voted to join National Nurses Organizing Committee-Texas (NNOC-Texas), an affiliate of the 155,000-member National Nurses United (NNU).
The election wins by the nurses took place during the past two weeks, with the latest victory coming last night at the Valley Regional Medical Center in Brownsville. They join the registered nurses who voted for a voice at work at four other Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) hospitals: Corpus Christi Medical Center in Corpus Christi, Del Sol Medical Center and Las Palmas Medical Center in El Paso, Rio Grande Regional Hospital in McAllen.
NNU Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro calls the wins in a predominantly nonunion state, a “historic moment for nurses and patients in Texas and the nation.”
The Texas RNs have broken through in achieving collective action and representation in Texas and opened a door that will never be closed.
Delegates to New RN Super Union Set for Convention
A new National Nurses United union is holding its founding convention Dec. 7-8 in Phoenix. The new union is a joint effort by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), the United American Nurses (UAN) and the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA).
The 150,000 RN super union was proposed earlier this year by the trio of nurses’ unions. The 23,000-member MNA approved the creation of the NNU in October. The 86,000-strong CNA/NNOC voted to join the super union in September.
Says UAN Secretary-Treasurer Jean Ross, RN:
It is long overdue for all staff nurses to join together nationally to tackle health care reform that works for everyone, safe nurse staffing levels and giving every unorganized nurse in this country who wants a union the chance to join one. None of these goals will be met without the cooperative work of staff nurses, and we can’t wait to get to work building on the good work UAN nurses have begun over the past decade.
