Nurses “Safe Patient Care Act” Deemed Harmful by MHA

• The Safe Patient Care Act is a series of legislative bills meant to protect the working conditions of nurses.
• 100,000 nurses have left the workforce in the last two years, many citing burnout and inadequate compensation.
• The Michigan Hospital Association (MHA) opposes these bills, claiming the number of nurses needed to fix the current nurse-to-patient ratios “do not exist.”
  

During the 2023 National Nurses Week, the Michigan Nurses Association announced a new legislative plan to protect nurses and help them give patients the best quality of care. These bills are known as the Safe Patient Care Act.”

This legislation is based on California law which took effect in 2004. However, the Safe Patient Care Act has not received unanimous support. Hospitals have spoken out against the legislation, claiming it “does nothing to address staffing shortages that have plagued hospitals and likely will only worsen current problems.”

What is the Safe Patient Care Act?

The Safe Patient Care Act is a bipartisan effort that aims to limit nurse-to-patient staffing ratios (House bill 4550, Senate bill 334), end forced RN overtime (HB  4551, SB 335), and require hospitals publicly disclose their nurse-to patient ratios (HB  4551, SB 335).

This legislation is in an effort to mitigate stress and burnout in nurses, as both contribute to a lower standard of care for patients and to the current nursing shortage crisis. Jeff Breslin, a RN on the Michigan Nurses Association’s Council on Legislation and Public Policy, said that patient care will receive the biggest positive impact, that “instead of having to cut corners, instead of having to rush through, we’ll be able to actually give them good care or better care than we’re able to with too many patients.”

A 2023 survey conducted on Michigan nurses found that 42% of nurses know of a patient death attributed to nurses being assigned too many patients, this rate is nearly doubled from a similar survey in 2016. The Michigan Nurses Association also compiled a list of research studies supporting the link between understaffed nursing shifts and increased patient infections, falls, medication errors, and preventable deaths.

A summary of the Safe Patient Care Act’s bills can be found on its website or on this bill summary sheet.

The Response

On May 11^th of this year, the Michigan Health & Hospital Association (MHA) and the Michigan Organization for Nursing Leadership (MONL) published a statement on this “harmful nursing legislation.”

The statement includes a list of their efforts to address the nursing shortage. However, none of these efforts include improvements to compensation or working conditions. They may not like the Safe Patient Care Act but also provide no answer of their own to address the issues that drive more and more nurses from the field.

The MHA later published a follow-up statement “specifically advocating to oppose Senate Bills 334 – 336 and House Bills (HBs) 4550 – 4552.” These 30 pages of legislation make up the entirety of the Safe Patient Care Act, which the MHA does not name in their statement. The MHA offers the four following solutions for the nursing shortage:

• Michigan joining the national Nurse Licensure Compact to allow out-of-state nurses to move to and practice in Michigan immediately.
• Increasing eligibility for Michigan Reconnect by lowering the age requirement to 18 and older.
• Expanding Michigan Reconnect availability to include 4-year institutions.
• Increasing penalties for violence committed against healthcare workers.

All of these solutions work towards increasing the current number of actively licensed nurses in Michigan but do not address any of the problems presented in the Safe Patient Care Act.

Proponents of the Safe Patient Care Act call the hospital industry’s response scare tactics. At the very least, these arguments look at the nursing shortage problem without analyzing what contributes to that problem. Deborah Burger, RN and a president of National Nurses United says that this “staffing crisis was manufactured by the hospital industry.”

Jamie Brown, the president of the Michigan Nurses Association says that nurses “feel like the hospitals have forgotten about us,” and that there are 50,000 nurses with active licenses in the state of Michigan but aren’t practicing. The nurses are there but they’re unable to work in the current conditions.

100,000 RNs left the workforce in the past two years. One study found that the top contributors for RNs deciding to leave direct patient care are not feeling valued by their organization, inadequate compensation, no work-life balance, and an unmanageable workload. These problems are not solved by new nurses, but instead systematic improvements to nurses’ working conditions.

The Bottom Line

Patient care is always the top priority in a functioning healthcare system. The Safe Patient Care Act claims to improve patient outcomes and quality of care by supporting the workforce that most directly works with patients.

Administrations like the MHA and MONL may continue to push back against this legislation, but without any rebuttal to the claims and research nurses are bringing forward it seems unlikely that their alleged dedication to nurses is anything more than empty flattery.

Nurses are essential but have long felt overworked and undervalued. Whether through this legislation or through other means, we have to prioritize the continued well-being of our nursing community.

Read More