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February 27, 2006 – Today, Senator Richard T. Moore (D-Uxbridge) proposed a redraft of Senate Bill 1260, An Act to promote safe patient care and support the nursing profession. This improved bill provides a process to boost the supply of nurses and nurse faculty through incentives for students and matching grants for hospitals. It also creates a public accountability process for developing staffing patterns for patient care. Additionally, the bill now includes language to provide a process to evaluate and report on measures to improve the quality of patient care and ensure transparency in hospital nurse staffing. 

Senator Moore is the primary author of language included in the bill that now eliminates mandatory overtime requirements for nurses and establishes a standard for work hours. Under the bill, nurses cannot be reprimanded for refusing to work beyond specified hours. 

“For some time now, there has been considerable debate and discussion on the issue of patient safety as it relates to the role of nursing in our health care facilities,” said Senator Moore, Senate Chairman of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing. “All sides of this debate recognize that there is a shortage of nurses that will continue to grow as the number of elderly residents needing care increases significantly. We all agree that having more nurses to serve the increasingly complex patient case load is a desirable goal.”

Last spring, Senator Harriette Chandler (D-Worcester) suggested to Representative A. Stephen Tobin (D-Quincy) and Senator Moore, as co-chairs of the Special Commission on Nursing Workforce Issues, should request an independent analysis of the two major legislative proposals before the committee (Senate Bill 1260 and House Bill 2663). The co-chairs then contacted UMASS Medical School-Division of Commonwealth Medicine to undertake the project. The team analyzed both bills last year, and made recommendations. 

As the principal sponsor of Senate Bill 1260, Senator Moore redrafted his bill to address the issues raised by the UMASS research team. 

The redraft of Senate Bill 1260 now includes: 

• An analysis, to be completed by April 15, 2007, of the health care workforce needs in Massachusetts and redesign of state initiatives to address the shortage of nurses.

• Development of a statewide plan to promote health care professions to encourage more people to consider careers in health care, especially nursing.

• Create and Collect nursing workforce data related to the practice of nursing, the supply needs of the nursing workforce, the supply needs for nursing faculty and other information needed to improve the profession of nursing.

• Establish the Clara Barton Nursing Excellence Program with $30 million to begin funding nursing student loan repayment assistance, a nursing scholarship program, a matching grant program with hospitals to promote more clinical settings, nursing faculty bonuses of $25,000/yr. for up to ten years to make teach more competitive with clinical nursing, and $5,000/yr. stipends for experienced nurses to mentor new nurses. 

• Provide accountability in nurse staffing plans by requiring hospitals to publicly post staffing plans addressing patient needs by identifying the appropriate number and mix of nursing staff for each hospital specific to each shift and unit, including a mechanism for accepting input from nurses and nurse managers. Hospitals will be subject to a $1,000 per day late penalty for failure to submit plans with the penalty fees deposited in the Clara Barton Nursing Excellence Trust Fund to be used to further enhance nursing. The Department of Public Health may require hospitals to revise plans as needed.

• Requires hospitals to participate in an evaluation of nurse staffing plans in relation to nursing sensitive patient outcomes using at least three nationally accepted measurements, including the National Data Bank of Nursing Quality Indicators measuring patient hours per patient day. The Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety in the Department of Public Health will be responsible for evaluating the effectiveness of the staffing plans in addressing patient needs.

• Effective in 2008, limit nursing work hours and mandatory overtime by prohibiting nurses from working more than 12 hours in any given shift, not to exceed 16 hours in a 24 hour period. Prohibits any disciplinary action for refusing to work beyond the specified hours. A nurse who works 12 consecutive hours in a shift must be given 10 hours off from any work between shifts. Nurses may not exceed work hours by working at other health care institutions. This provision is expected to significantly improve patient and nurse safety.

• Effective in 2008, requires all licensed nursing homes to have a registered nurse on duty at all times.

• Establishes a commission to evaluate nursing hours in order to reduce fatigue and improve patient safety consistent with the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine’s report “Keeping Patients Safe: Transforming the Work Environment of Nurses.

For more information on Senate Bill 1260, log onto www.senatormoore.com/health

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