“The COVID-19 pandemic has put unprecedented pressure on New York State`s hospital systems, highlighting various issues related to staffing and efficient resource allocation,” Governor Cuomo said in a statement posted on the website. “This legislation requires hospitals to form committees made up of the same staff who treat patients on-site every day and develop plans that address their concerns when assigning staff. We need to ensure that nurses and support staff have a voice in their hospitals, and these new requirements will allow them to plan together for the future. And yet, in the past, nurses have been excluded from this conversation. Let`s get started, with New York leading the way to a future where direct clinical caregivers are involved in decisions that actually impact clinical care. When Jordyn isn`t reporting the latest news from the nurses, she`s probably watching a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, cheering on the Iowa Hawkeyes, or watching Gilmore Girls for the millionth time. After the bill was signed, the New York State Nurses Association issued a statement calling the legislation, along with another bill to establish minimum staffing levels in nursing homes, a “giant leap.” They also oppose a benefit-cap provision that states that only 15 percent of a nursing home`s income can be used to pay employees of outpatient care agencies. Something many nursing homes have relied on during the pandemic. They argue that this is a collective bargaining issue and that the Supreme Court has ruled that states cannot interfere in labour matters. “At this time, nursing homes should adequately document their efforts to comply with the law,” Department of Health spokeswoman Erin Silk said in the statement. Despite a persistent shortage of health care workers nationwide and new census data suggesting a continued decline in the proportion of working-age people, the Senate and Assembly passed a bill mandating minimum staffing keys for retirement homes. While the recently adopted state budget allocates funds for staffing nursing homes, state policymakers have yet to meaningfully address the labor crisis.
As drafted, the regulation opens loopholes for hospitals to circumvent the strict relationship, she said. On average, twelve hours of care could provide hospitals with fewer staff at night if they compensate with extra staff in the morning. At a meeting in October, when a voluntary board of health that provides expert advice to the state government was reviewing the Department of Health`s draft plan to implement the law, one of the members pointed out that it was unlikely that the ministry would be able to meet the proposed schedule and asked what would happen as a result. The chairman of the council said he did not want to speak publicly about it until he had led it through their lawyers. The State has issued revised guidelines in the State Registry. Further changes could be in the works as trade associations and operators opt for a 45-day comment period that will end on Sept. 26, according to Hanse. “If employers really invest and agree that they will do whatever it takes to retain these engaged workers, they will not lose them,” she said at a virtual press conference on Friday. “That means you have to deal with issues related to wages, benefits, working conditions and what it means to have a safe work environment for caregivers.” Hanse said in a statement that the analysis describes the “physical inability” of many nursing homes to meet minimum staffing requirements, as well as the financial impact on the industry. Even before the law went into effect, of the 611 nursing homes in the state, 383 (63%) were considered to require less than 3.5 hours per day of staff. The State Ministry of Health has not taken any further action on the law since that meeting.
Nor did he suggest that there would be consequences to delaying the process by at least three months if the state sticks to its current goal of putting the order on the books after the two-month public comment period in mid-April. The Hochul government`s responsibility to maintain the financial viability of a crisis system could make it more open to these industry arguments. The Iroquois Healthcare Alliance — a hospital association representing about 50 hospitals in 32 counties — sent a letter to the state`s former health commissioner, Howard Zucker, in November, asking him to delay the implementation of the Hospital Personnel Act. The organization collected data showing that job vacancy rates for nurses in its network increased from 15.9% in January 2021 to 25.2% in January 2022. “The only solution to the labor crisis that is not resolved today, tomorrow, a month or six months from now is a partnership between the administration, legislators, suppliers and workers working together to take real initiatives that help recruit and retain workers,” Hanse told Skilled Nursing News. The previous regulation required the provider to quantify labor shortages, but in the revised regulation, the state health commissioner will determine quarterly whether there is an acute shortage of manpower for licensed practical nurses (CNAs), licensed general practitioners (RPNs) and registered nurses (RNs) across the state, Hanse said. A report by Attorney General Letitia James released earlier this year found that some for-profit nursing homes diverted profits to related parties in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic instead of investing in staff and personal protective equipment. Managing these tensions will test the state`s new health commissioner, Mary Bassett, as she walks the tightrope between industry and union pressure.
The Health Council, which is responsible for advising the state health ministry on the implementation of the law — about half of whom are health system administrators, including its chairman — has previously discussed easing language around the intensive care unit and other parts of the law. The pandemic has exacerbated decades-long calls by nurses for improved staffing standards for hospitals and nursing homes, which are currently well below those in California — the state considered the gold standard by nurses` unions after being the only one in the U.S. to impose nurse-to-patient ratios nationwide. The shortage of nurses is a particularly serious problem in intensive care units that serve patients with life-threatening illnesses or injuries who require a combination of constant care, life-saving equipment and medications to ensure normal bodily functions. Jessica Montanaro, a nurse in the intensive care unit at Mount Sinai Morningside, is regularly assigned three patients who need almost constant attention to survive. Research shows that ICU patients see significantly worse outcomes when there are more than two patients per nurse. She described one particularly risky change: “You have three ventilated patients with multiple drops and one neuropatient who has a head hemorrhage [and] needs all the one-hour neurological exams. How does a nurse do that? “And yet, for some reason, it is ignored.” Updated: The 16. In February, after the initial publication of this article, the state Ministry of Health formally proposed a version of the ICU regulations that was included in the staff committee process, rather than the stand-alone rule provided for by the legislation.
The unions had warned that a divergence would delay the implementation of the ICU regulation until 2023. “The law clearly directs the DOH to adopt stand-alone staffing regulations for intensive care units and intensive care units that are independent of the staffing committee process, just as other nurse-patient relationships have already been on the books, such as burn units or liver transplants,” Miller said. Legislative Director of CWA D1. “So what the 70-40 rule does is it really requires operators to show that they`re doing what they promised,” Heckler said, “not just to taxpayers, but to every resident they`ve admitted to their facility, which is to spend the money on nursing home staff and other care needs.” The unions have called on the Ministry of Health to amend the wording of the intensive care regulation so that it is independently applicable if the ministry formalises the rule in the state register.