News

Hospitals Respond to Call for Transparency Surrounding Nurse Staffing Levels

03 Aug, 2015

A new report from New Yorkers for Patient and Family Empowerment found that hospitals are keeping the public in the dark about whether they have enough nurses to properly care for patients.

The report outlines what our health care members already know: that the public is not aware of how understaffed hospitals really are, and that unsafe staffing puts patients at increased risk of infection, inadequately treated pain, and even death.

The report, commissioned by CWA District One, calls for hospitals to disclose and post on their websites both planned and actual nurse staffing ratios, including minimum staffing levels tolerated. A 2009 law requires hospitals and nursing homes to make shift by shift staffing ratios available to the public, but subsequent Department of Health guidelines all but gut that law, leaving patients in the dark and at risk. Only one major hospital in the state posts nurse-to-patient ratios for its various units on its website, Upstate University Hospital (SUNY) in Syracuse.

But since the report’s release, 2 more Syracuse hospitals have reported that they may also begin posting ratios online.

"While this is the beginning of disclosure, we hope all hospitals, including SUNY Upstate, will post not only their average staffing ratios in the varying units, but also the range of fluctuation in staffing that hospital management will allow," said Suzanne Mattei, executive director of New Yorkers for Patient & Family Empowerment.

This welcomed announcement by two other hospitals shows the extent to which public pressure can influence what happens behind taxpayer-funded hospital doors. Patients and their loved ones are often shocked to discover that there are no minimum nurse-to-patient ratios even though they are proven to save lives and improve outcomes.

In short, safe staffing levels save lives. CWA and consumer groups like New Yorkers for Patient and Family Empowerment are continuing to push hospitals to implement safe staffing levels.

Read the report: All Hands on Deck.

Learn more about the issues facing CWA members: NYStaffingSavesLives.org