The Massachusetts Nurses Association, a union with 23,000 members, said Monday that it is airing a TV ad that shows two hospital chief executives "clicking glasses of champagne on a beach in the Cayman Islands and enjoying a lavish taxpayer subsidized lifestyle." The Massachusetts Hospital Association, a hospital industry trade group, countered that the ad is "misleading and irresponsible. The ad campaign, which includes a radio component, is intended to urge legislators to pass the Hospital Profit Transparency and Fairness Act.
One in four nurses believe patient deaths are due to nurses having too many patients to care for at one time, according to survey results released Wednesday by supporters of strict limits on nurse staffing levels. The survey results show patient safety is "erratic, unpredictable and subject to many pressures in the health-care system, most not even related to the actual patients and their needs," according to state Rep. Denise Garlick, a Needham Democrat and a registered nurse. Nurses say high patient loads are the cause of poor care levels, preventable medical errors, readmissions and patient deaths, Garlick said at a Statehouse press conference, where she was joined by six House members, Sens. Marc Pacheco and Jamie Eldridge, and Massachusetts Nurses Association members.
At a time when the Affordable Care Act and an aging Baby Boom generation could combine to create greater demand for nurses nationwide, Mississippi is the most ill-prepared state in the union to handle the nursing industry's shifting job market, a new study finds. Financial website WalletHub measured each state and the District of Columbia through 15 metrics, including job opportunities in each state, competition for each job opening, differences in workplace environment and future jobs projections. Mississippi ranked 51st overall in the study and didn't fare much better in key individual metrics, finishing in the bottom 10 in job opportunities, competition for each opening and work environment.
Rose Okoro, a nurse practitioner who specializes in family medicine, opened the Daystar Family Clinic in Katy, Texas, last October. Seven months later, she has only enough patients to work there part time. It is not because of demand but because of a law that ties the work of nurse practitioners to doctors, said Okoro, who has a doctorate in nursing practice. State regulations do not allow her to be reimbursed by insurance companies unless the physician who supervises her has a contract with those companies. Nurse practitioners in Texas have long fought against state regulations that link them financially and professionally to supervising physicians, a construct they say ties their hands and limits their ability to treat patients.
In another attempt to revive a nurse ratio staffing bill, a group representing D.C. nurses submitted a report to city officials Monday listing 215 instances when they say patients were endangered due to understaffing in District hospitals. National Nurses United, a national union that has partnered with a D.C. nurses union, is pushing for mandated nurse ratios and trying to get the D.C. Council's Committee on Health to bring a bill out of committee that would create one. They also rallied in front of the John A. Wilson Building on Monday morning. The bill was first introduced in D.C. in February 2013.
Nurses are taking on some new roles as state and federal lawmakers redefine health care. Jo Ann Webb, a health policy professor at Georgetown University, envisions droves of nurses spreading out into communities. She talks about the shift toward treating more patients in their homes, as opposed to hospitals. Webb brings up pharmacies -- like Wal-Mart and CVS – and plans to have nurses administer basic medical exams for people shopping at the stores. Then, Webb, who also works for a nursing leadership organization, mentions the shortage of nurses to fill these new jobs, which are largely being created by the federal Affordable Care Act.