JOIN ANA’s SAFE STAFFING CAMPAIGN NOW!
Sep 15th, 2008 by mariceltpadua
The American Nurses Association had become consistent in its campaign or advocacy of safe staffing among health workplaces in the United States of America. Their national campaign specifically entitled, “Safe Staffing Saves Lives,” is launched in order to uphold and fight for legislations of safe staffing.
Giving you an overview of what safe staffing is all about, safe staffing ensures that the number of healthcare workers is proportional to the number and necessary needs of patients. The health team of a medical facility must be composed of multi-disciplinary health professionals in order to propagate a hazard free work place where patient needs are addressed and satisfied at all times.
ANA claims that US legislators must come up with a legislature imposing staffing ratios based on the number of RN input required by patient’s needs. Thus, the organization proposed different strategies to assure sufficient nurse staffing. These are:
- Nurse staffing plans – the number of RN input must be based on the specific and immediate health need of the patient along with other criteria.
- Fixed mandated ratios – a fixed staffing ratio is set in the law.
- Combination of nurse staffing plans and legislated nurse to patient ratio – Information about nurse staffing must be made available to the public.
The American Nurse’s Association proposed a safe staffing approach that will caters to the specific needs of each unit based on the following considerations such as:
- Patient acuity
- Nursing staff experience
- Mixture of skills of the staff
- Available technology
- Support services given to the nurses
On top of this kind of safe staffing strategy, nurses are treated as professionals thus giving them to perform decision-making tasks suitable for the excellent delivery of patient care.
ANA had been devoted in their safe staffing advocacy. In fact, the organization is in partnership with the State Nurses Association in promoting legislation. They aim to make hospitals and other health care facilities responsible for implementing safe staffing plans through the power of legislation. One of the laws that ANA had been consistently supporting is the Registered Nurse Safe Staffing Act of 2007 (S.73/H.R.4138). This act has similar objectives and principle with that of the organization. They have similarities with that of the Principles of ANA on Nurse Staffing like the specific rationale of requiring hospitals to consult their direct-care nurses and to establish a safe staffing plan based on patient acuity, experience, skills, unit-level geography and circumstances.
In support with ANA, several US states had passed laws and guidelines of safe staffing in their own jurisdictions based on the principles of ANA. Why not do the same at this point of time to make a difference in the healthcare system? Join ANA’s campaign for Safe Staffing now!