Methodist Hospital PACU nurses recently celebrated a win that illustrates how working together and taking action can improve patient care in our hospitals.

After management denied requests for additional staff to replace nurses out on leave, Methodist PACU nurses circulated a petition and gathered the signatures of 100 percent of their fellow nurses on the unit.  They submitted the petition to the employer and within hours the employer notified MNA that they would bring in agency help to improve staffing and would post the position for a permanent replacement in the coming weeks.

“We’ve got to staff our unit.  Our contract says we’re back up calls, not first call,” said Jean Adomaitis, RN, in the Recovery Unit.  Adomaitis said they feared patient care was going to suffer and gaps in staffing would start to appear on the day shifts as tired nurses wouldn’t be able to work round-the-clock.   She said she wasn’t surprised by all the signatures and credits the unanimous consent of all the nurses to convincing management to act.

“It was almost a slam dunk,” Adomaitis said.  “The fact that everyone signed it.   They saw the whole unit, a very professional unit with lots of ICU experience.  She (nursing manager) saw all these names, and said, ‘ok, we’ll do something.’”

We are ethically and legally obligated to advocate for the safety of our patients every day, in every unit, on every shift. When our professional nursing judgment tells us that staffing is unsafe and potentially detrimental to patient health, we have to act collectively to demand better staffing. When we are denied that help the first time, we must increase the pressure on the employer until they have to respond.

The petition was Methodist PACU nurses first collective action as a unit, but other member leaders helped them out just as PACU members supported facility-wide actions in the past.  We have the collective action of the nurses who came before us to thank for our right to organize, our high standards of patient care, and the protection of our union contract. It is our responsibility to our patients and to the future members of our profession to continue that proud tradition of advocacy.

NOTES ON NURSING

HHS Secretary Sebelius Hails Nurses   National Nurses Week gives us a chance to recognize the contribution of the health care providers at the heart of our health care system.  Every day, nurses provide leadership, innovation and advocacy to meet the health care needs of Americans.

Advanced Nurses Lower Costs, Improve Care   Studies find that Advanced Practice Registered Nurses who provide preventive  care are as effective as primary-care physicians in accuracy of diagnosis and  prescription.

LABOR UPDATES

The Labor Market Won’t Be Healthy Until People Feel Like they Can Quit Their Jobs  The unemployment rate may be falling and the number of jobs rising. But there isn’t enough “churn” going on, a hallmark of a healthy job market, in which people freely move between positions.

Daily Job Death Toll:  150 Workers    The report finds that along with the 4,693 workers killed on the job in 2011 (about 13 a day)—the last figures available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)—an estimated 50,000 workers a year (about 137 a day) die from occupational diseases. In addition, some 3.8 workers are reported to suffer job-related injuries or illnesses each year.

Battle at Kaiser Permanente is Sign of Vibrant Health Care Unions   “The old image is of a union worker being a steel worker or an auto worker but the typical person today is a teacher, nurse, firefighter or airline pilot. Nurses are one of the most unionized groups in society,” said Alex Colvin, who chairs the labor relations department at Cornell University. “This isn’t an area where unions are dying.”

HEALTH CARE

Slowdown in Rise of Health Care Costs May Persist    David M. Cutler estimates that, given the dynamics of the slowdown, economists might be overestimating public health spending over the next decade by as much as $770 billion.  Related:  Structural Changes May Be Foundation for Containment 

Same Procedure, $30K Difference in Hospital Billing   For the first time, the federal government has released the prices that hospitals charge for the 100 most common inpatient procedures. Until now, these charges have been closely held by facilities that see a competitive advantage in shielding their fees from competitors. What the numbers reveal is a health-care system with tremendous, seemingly random variation in the costs of services.