6.18.03
Survey
of Registered Nurses in Massachusetts
Presentation of Key Findings
June 18, 2003
Julie
Pinkham, RN, Executive Director
Massachusetts Nurses Association
There’s
an old adage in medicine that says: if you don’t listen to nurses
you will not hear the patients. The results of the survey I will
share this morning tell us what nurses, those on the front lines,
are thinking and experiencing. If we listen to what they are saying,
we will hear the sound of patients who are suffering. Worse, we
will hear the deafening silence of patients who can no longer speak
because they are no longer alive to tell their stories.
These
findings are at the core of a telephone survey of 600 registered
nurses in Massachusetts completed by Opinion Dynamics, an independent
research firm located in Cambridge. The 600 nurses interviewed were
randomly selected from a file of all Massachusetts RNs. Survey respondents
were interviewed at home, between May 30 and June 8, 2003.
Karen
just reviewed for you what we have learned from research on the
national level. This data is the first in many years to focus on
what nurses in Massachusetts are experiencing as a result of staffing
conditions in hospitals. I want to underscore that 70 percent of
those surveyed were not members of our organization. Today’s results
paint a true picture of the experiences of front-line nurses in
our state.
The
picture they paint is shocking. Let me give you the most alarming
statistic in the survey of nurses in the Commonwealth: nearly one
in three Massachusetts nurses surveyed report they are aware of
patients who have died because nurses had too many patients to care
for.
Let’s look at the current staffing conditions that lead directly
to this sobering statistic:
- 87
percent of Massachusetts nurses surveyed report that they have
too many patients to care for;
- 75
percent of Massachusetts nurses report that their managers schedule
too few nurses for their shifts;
- 70
percent of Massachusetts nurses report that they are being floated
to other areas of the hospital without proper orientation or training;
- 60
percent of bedside nurses in Massachusetts report that hospital
administrators impose mandatory overtime instead of staffing properly;
- 58
percent of Massachusetts nurses report that hospital managers
assign nursing duties to non-nurses rather than hiring qualified
registered nurses;
- An
astounding 93 percent of all Massachusetts nurses surveyed report
being burned out by excessive patient loads; and
- 65
percent of Massachusetts nurses agree with the statement that
working conditions in Massachusetts hospitals are “brutal” for
nurses.
Now
let’s look at the results of these dangerous staffing practices.
- When
asked what the most important problem they face while doing their
jobs, the number one answer Massachusetts nurses give is that
they are being asked to care for too many patients;
- 67
percent of Massachusetts nurses reported an increase in medication
errors due to poor ratios;
- 64
percent of the nurses in Massachusetts report an increase in medical
complications because of high patient loads;
- 54
percent of Massachusetts nurses report that patients are being
readmitted because nurses are caring for too many patients;
- One
in two Massachusetts nurses report that poor staffing leads to
longer stays for patients;
- 52
percent of Massachusetts nurses--one in two--report that their
patients were injured and harmed because of high patient loads;
- And
again, most alarming of all, nearly one in three Massachusetts
nurses report that they are aware of patient deaths because of
nurses having too many patients to care for.
When
it comes to other vitally important aspects of nursing practice:
- 88
percent of nurses report not having enough time to comfort and
assist patients and their families;
- 86
percent of nurses report not having enough time to educate patients;
and
- 81
percent of nurses report that their patients have to wait for
their medications and treatments because the nurses have too many
patients to care for.
These
last statistics should not be overshadowed by the more alarming
results that speak to the harm and complications for patients, since
lack of time to comfort patients, educate patients and deliver medications
on time represent the causes of many of the negative patient outcomes
I just cited. A medication delay can result not only in unnecessary
pain and suffering, but it can lead to a downturn in a patient’s
condition that causes harm or lengthens that patient’s stay. When
nurses, who are the educators in the system, don’t have enough time
to teach a patient, such as a diabetic how to manage their condition,
there is a greater likelihood that this patient will end up being
readmitted for complications resulting from the fact that they were
not taught how to manage their insulin. And because we are all concerned
with costs, let me note that all of these poor patient outcomes
cost the system billions of dollars.
The
popular claim, the one in which we all take comfort regularly, is
that Massachusetts is a medical Mecca. Unfortunately, the results
of the nurses’ survey are more negative in their scope than those
found in a number of national surveys of nurses conducted in recent
years. Let’s look at what nurses think of the overall quality of
health care being provided by Massachusetts hospitals:
Only
4 percent of nurses rate the care at their hospitals as excellent;
66
percent of Massachusetts nurses believe hospital finances are not
being properly spent on patient care;
55
percent of nurses report that the care at their hospital has deteriorated
in the last five years; and
61
percent report that they expect the care to become worse in the
future.
This
survey not only underscores the danger posed to patients by chronic
understaffing in our hospitals, it also provides solid and compelling
evidence that these conditions created and continue to exacerbate
the shortage of nurses in our state.
While
national surveys of nurses show that one in five nurses plan to
leave the profession in the next five years, 93 percent of Massachusetts
RNs agree that burnout from high patient loads causes RNs to leave
the hospital bedside, and 55 percent have considered leaving the
hospital bedside as a result of having too many patients to care
for. The number one reason given by nurses in Massachusetts who
have already left hospital bedsides is that they had too many patients
to care for.
Fortunately,
the dark cloud of data in this survey does contain a silver lining:
86 percent of all Massachusetts nurses surveyed support legislation
to regulate RN-to-patient ratios in hospitals. More importantly,
65 percent of those who have left the bedside say they would be
likely to return if this legislation passed, with 42 percent saying
they would be much more likely to consider returning if safe staffing
ratios are established.
These
results make abundantly clear that the cause of the shortage of
nurses we now face is understaffing of nurses. Unsafe staffing ratios
and staffing practices such as mandatory overtime implemented by
the hospital industry to save money have driven thousands of nurses
away from the hospital bedside. Understaffing, the mandatory overtime,
and the brutal working conditions that nurses in Massachusetts find
so dangerous to patients have been the norm for more than a decade.
Their
creation was a conscious choice by the hospital industry to roll
the dice with the quality of patient care in an attempt to provide
care at a lower cost by forcing fewer nurses to care for more patients
and work longer hours. All this was done before there was a shortage
of nurses, and, in fact, was precipitated by massive layoffs of
nurses across the Commonwealth.
Our
message is simple, if the legislature joins us in building safe
staffing ratios, the nurses will most certainly come. If nothing
is done, this situation will only get worse.
The
sobering message this research conveys cannot and should not be
ignored. We implore the legislature to listen to what nurses and,
through them, patients in Massachusetts are saying. With the release
of this survey, we are all pushing the call button and we are waiting
for the legislature to respond with the only remedy that makes sense
– safe staffing legislation that will restore safe, quality hospital
care to Massachusetts.
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