Minnesota nurses are staffing the State Fair again to speak to the same people they care for every day.  Patients in Minnesota are at risk, and their safety stands to improve if they’re know how their hospitals are measuring up.  Thanks to the work nurses did during the last legislative session, consumers will have more information before deciding where to go for care, and, once they access that, they’ll see the real situation of safety in hospitals.

Nurses are reminding fairgoers that they already have a website where they can check hospital quality for a number of different outcomes.  Patients are encouraged to learn that, very soon, they’ll be able to look at the various staffing levels for hospitals in Minnesota.  Researchers at the Minnesota Department of Health are also anxious to see this data as they compile a report on the connection between patient outcomes and hospital staffing.

Consumers who are unaware of staffing issues at their local hospital can also learn about resources where they can learn more.  They can start by going to safepatientstandard.com 

Nurses are handing out rulers that ask consumers if their local hospital measures up and carries the QR code to the safe patient standard website.

Most importantly though, the State Fair is a chance for Minnesotans to hear from nurses how they cope with short staffing issues, why nurses constantly worry about their patient’s safety, and what is and isn’t being done about it in the hospitals in the state.  Minnesotans deserve to know how their hospitals are doing.  It’ll be an education on a stick.

Hospitals are bending over backward to increase their patient satisfaction scores, and, especially now, as it may affect their ability to bill patients.  Hospitals are adding room service, suites, and even “care guides” to help patients meet health and recovery goals.

The answer to patient satisfaction isn’t a new piano in the lobby, it’s right inside each patient’s room.  It’s the nurse.  Nurses say they’re often asked, “can you just sit with me a while?” by a patient.  Or the patient will even ask a nurse who’s charting if he or she can just turn around and face them while they have to also look at the computer.  It’s the caregiver interaction that patients need and, yes, crave when they’re vulnerable, and it’s the one-to-one contact that will make patients happy.

Some hospitals seem to get it.  Sort of.  One hospital just boasted that it had increased nurse-to-patient contact time by double-digit percentages as a show of progress, but what this hospital didn’t mention is that they did it by moving computers into patient rooms so nurses had to chart while sitting next to a patient, not with a patient.  That’s called abiding by the letter of the law but not the spirit.

Other hospitals, however, continue to understaff nurses in critical areas.  Even where a nurse needs to watch over a patient, comfort then, or explain how their care will continue at home, nurses are shaving time with each patient so they can get to the next.  A nurse blazing through discharge instructions doesn’t make patients feel satisfied or cared for, it just makes them feel like a number.

Rather than poll patients to determine their satisfaction, hospitals ought to be keeping track of how many patients each nurse is spending time with.  That’s the simple and effective formula for figuring patient satisfaction.

Bravo to Theresa Brown, RN, for writing an eye-opening Op-Ed, exposing the dangers faced by patients when not enough nurses are on duty.  The New York Times published her opinion on Sun., Aug. 18, which puts this issue front and center, where it should be.   Read the OpEd here.  
We encourage you to read the entire piece, along with the Comments Section AND participate in the online discussion.
Brown mentions only one piece of legislation being considered by Congress to address the issue of poor staffing levels, but it is important to know that efforts are being led by nursing communities (including National Nurses United) to advance other bills on the federal and state levels as well.
In April of this year, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), introduced the National Nursing Shortage Reform and Patient Advocacy Act, (S 739) and its companion bill in the House, authored by Rep. Jan Schakowsky,  Safe Nurse Staffing for Patient Safety and Quality Care Act (HR 1907).
If passed, the legislation would protect the rights of nurses to advocate on behalf of their patients, establish minimum nurse-to-patient ratios in hospitals and invest in training and retaining nurses to address the nationwide nursing shortage.
“I am proud to introduce legislation that will help save the lives of countless patients by improving the quality of care in our nation’s hospitals,” Sen. Boxer says. “We must support the nurses who work tirelessly every day to provide the best possible care to their patients.”

Specifically, Boxer’s bill would:

• Establish minimum nurse-to-patient ratios that will save lives, improve the quality of care and help to address the nursing shortage by creating a work environment that encourages nurses to remain in the hospital workforce.
• Provide whistleblower protections to protect the right of nurses to advocate for the safety of patients and report violations of minimum standards of care.
• Invest in nursing mentorship demonstration programs to better prepare nurses for work in a hospital setting.