New Study Shows Calif. Staffing Ratio Law Good for Patients, Nurses
Another major study shows that California’s landmark nurse to-patient staffing ratio law improves the quality of patient care and enhances registered nurse staffing.
The latest study, by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Arizona State University, also refutes predictions promoted by healthcare industry opponents of the California law that hospitals might respond by disproportionately hiring lower-skill licensed vocational nurses.
The study shows after implementation of the law in 2004, California hospitals have added registered nurses, dramatically increasing patient access to professional RN care, a factor long associated with positive patient outcomes in a broad range of care barometers. Says Deborah Burger, RN, a co-president of National Nurses United (NNU) and the California Nurses Association (CNA): Read the rest of this entry »
Minnesota Nurses Ratify New Contract
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After more than three months of tense negotiations that included a 24-hour strike, some 12,000 nurses in Minnesota’s Twin Cities yesterday voted to ratify a new three-year contract with 14 area hospitals. The new pact contains no concessions or give-backs and maintains the pension plan.
Although they did not win new safe staffing language they sought, the nurses maintained safe staffing language already in their contract, in which a nurse has a right to close a unit when it becomes unsafe to admit any more patients. The nurses are members of the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA), an affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU).
Cindy Olson, an RN at St. John’s Hospital in Maplewood and a member of the MNA negotiating team, said:
It’s been a long three-plus months, but the nurses I’m talking to tonight have a healthy mixture of relief and resolve. Relief that we finally have a contract in front of us that we could ratify, and resolve to make sure we finish the job when it comes to attaining the safe staffing levels our patients and our profession deserve.
Chicago Nurses Vote to Join National Nurses United
Some 1,300 registered nurses at the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) are the newest members of the National Nurses United (NNU). The UCMC nurses voted last night to join the nation’s largest RN union.
The nurses say their top priorities are critical patient safety changes at the medical center, including improved patient staffing and an end to scheduling practices that undermine patient care conditions.
NNU Co-President Jean Ross says the UCMC nurses “have worked very hard to enhance patient care conditions and secure better standards for patients and nurses,” but faced management resistance. Now,
they will be right at home with RNs very much like them across the country, and will have the collective power of nurses from coast to coast behind them. Read the rest of this entry »
Ad: When Nurses Disappear, So Does Patient Safety
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The nation’s crisis in patient care stems from routine understaffing of registered nurses in hospitals—and that understaffing, say nurses unions, leads to thousands of unnecessary patient deaths a year.
In a move to raise public awareness and build support for national safe staffing level standards, the nation’s three major nurses unions have launched a new TV and online advertising campaign. The campaign coincides with the debut of “HawthoRNe,” one of the new TV shows debuting this season that features nurse characters.
The ad from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), United American Nurses (UAN) and Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) asks viewers to imagine a world without nurses.
When nurses disappear, so does patient safety….If you’ve ever been a patient or will be one in the future, insist on safe staffing levels—because it’s our registered nurses who put the care in health care.
Three RN Unions Join Forces in New Union
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In a move to create a powerful national voice for registered nurses, three of the largest nurse unions in the country announced today they are coming together in a new 150,000-member association.
The three groups are the United American Nurses (UAN), California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) and the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA).
The new organization will be called the United American Nurses-National Nurses Organizing Committee, UAN-NNOC (AFL-CIO), and will bring the MNA’s 23,000 members into the AFL-CIO.
A statement from the unions this morning said:
Under the principle that RNs should be represented by an RN union, we resolve to create a new union of staff nurse-led organizations named UAN-NNOC.
