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Union: Florida Hospitals Provide Less Nursing Care Than U.S. Norm

Posted on: Wednesday, 24 August 2005, 09:00 CDT

Aug. 24--Florida hospitals provide patients with an average 7.3 hours of nursing care a day, less than the national average, according to a report released Tuesday by the state's health-care workers union.

The SEIU Florida Healthcare Union report looked at 2003 data reported by 143 Florida hospitals to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. The group compared the state average of nursing care provided in a 24-hour period to the national average of 9 hours gleaned from a 2002 Harvard School of Public Health study.

In Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, 15 hospitals were evaluated. Seven were above the state average, and eight were below it. Delray Medical Center had the lowest average, 4.4 hours, and Wellington Regional Medical Center had the highest with 10.5 hours.

The report also showed that nursing care hours varied widely within regions and that, on average, nonprofit hospitals had more nursing hours than for-profit hospitals. The report did not include agency nurses who are hired by hospitals on a per-diem basis.

For the most part, area hospital officials took issue with the report.

Rich Rasmussen, a spokesman for the Florida Hospital Association, called the report flawed. He said that the data were collected from financial reports not intended to determine staffing and that not including per-diem nurses in the report was wrong.

"That is how hospitals meet their staffing needs," he said. "They assert agency staff might not be good for hospitals, and we dispute that."

The Delray Medical data in the report covered only seven months because the hospital switched its fiscal year in 2003, hospital spokeswoman Pat McCarthy said. She said the actual nursing hours average for the hospital is 7.5. All Tenet hospitals in the county -- including Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center and West Boca Medical Center -- changed their fiscal years in 2003.

The Florida union's report said it examined nursing care hours because studies have shown that patients have better results in hospitals with more nurses. The 2002 Harvard study found patients at hospitals with higher nurse staffing levels had lower rates of conditions such as urinary tract infections, hospital-acquired pneumonia and cardiac arrest.

Rolando Davila, a registered nurse at Cedars Medical Center in Miami, said staffing shortages make it hard to take care of patients.

"You don't get to check on your patients as often as otherwise," he said. "You will not pick up on the early signs of patients taking a turn for the worse."

Those difficulties have led many nurses away from hospital work, said Betsy Marville, a registered nurse in the trauma center's intensive care unit at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach.

"Nursing has trended the wrong way," Marville said. "We really have a nursing crisis in that nurses don't want to work in hospitals."

The union is calling for hospitals to release to the public their patient-to-nurse ratios by department, and it wants to see nurse-to-patient ratios mandated by law, as they are in California. Monica Russo, president of the Florida union, said it is putting together its legislative plan and talking to lawmakers.

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Source: The Palm Beach Post

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