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Massachusetts Hospital Association announces safety plan

Patient Safety Monitor Alert, February 7, 2005

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Public posting of nurses' workloads and hours spent directly caring for patients is one component of the Massachusetts Hospital Association's new program to improve patient safety in the state's 105 hospitals, according to a Boston Globe article.

As of January 26, 31 hospitals signed a pledge to participate in the voluntary "Patients First" program. The initiative includes about 20 goals, such as regularly discussing patient safety at hospital trustee meetings and submitting nurse staffing plans to state public health officials annually. Participating hospitals pledge to eliminate mandatory overtime for nurses, except in the case of rare emergencies.

Hospitals will report publicly three patient-care measures that researchers say will indicate the quality of nursing. One measure, chosen by an expert panel, is how many hours a day a patient can expect direct care from a nurse at a specific unit in a specific hospital. Hospital executives said this is a better measure of nursing quality than nurse-to-patient ratios, but the Massachusetts Nursing Association (MNA) calls the initiative inadequate. The MNA is backing a bill that would require a minimum number of nurses per patient.

"Our proposal allows patients and families to directly enforce the standard," said Julie Pinkham, executive director of the MNA. "Theirs is like the fox guarding the chicken coop."

Lucian Leape, MD, a Harvard School of Public Health professor and nationally known patient safety researcher, told the Globe that the hospitals have chosen important goals. "Staffing ratios are a big bone of contention," he said. "Clearly, the hospitals wanted to avoid having it regulated. But if they can do it themselves, that's fine. Patients have a right to this type of accountability."

To read the complete article in the Boston Globe, click here.

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