The present information sheet summarizes the potential benefits of enacting minimum nurse staffing requirements in the state. It provides a brief overview of research findings highlighting the key favorable outcomes of adequate nurse staffing.
- Proper nurse-patient ratios allow lowering workloads and improving work environments. As a result, nurses become able to provide higher quality care to patients and monitor changes in their health conditions more effectively.
- California, where the Nurse Staffing Mandate was implemented in 2004, has a 13.9% lower surgical mortality rate than in New Jersey and a 10.6% lower surgical mortality rate than in Pennsylvania.
- Californian nurses also report that they have more time to spend with patients (66%) compared to nurses in New Jersey (53%) and Pennsylvania (55%). It means that proper staffing is correlated with higher chances to provide patient-centered care and improve patient satisfaction.
- Better staffing helps to decrease the time patients spend in intensive care and surgical units by 24% and 31%, respectively.
- Due to excessive workloads and burnout caused by inadequate nurse-patient ratios, many nurses tend to quit their jobs or leave the profession. Thus, poor staffing may contribute to the problem of the nursing shortage, which negatively affects patients’ access to high-quality care.
- Hospitals having above-the-minimum nurse-patient ratios usually serve a higher percentage of Medicaid and uninsured patients than those with inadequate nurse-patient ratios.