Nearly half of Michigan’s participating hospitals earned a “C” grade on patient safety, according to a report this week from the Leapfrog Group. The organization reports that its Hospital Safety Scores provide the most complete picture of avoidable hospital errors, accidents and infections that kill or harm tens of thousands of patients every year. Compared to A hospitals, patients in a C hospital have a 35% higher risk of dying of preventable harm.
The Michigan Health and Hospital Association, through voluntary reporting efforts, reported 52,000 incidents, near misses and unsafe conditions in Michigan hospitals in 2014, according to the 2015 Michigan Health and Hospital Association Patient Safety and Quality Annual Report.
Shelby Kivela, an RN who works in an Upper Peninsula hospital, said she left to work in another state in part because repeated mandatory overtime was taking a heavy toll on her and her patients.
Kivela shared how she left Michigan to work in a Boston hospital. Massachusetts’ law limits ICU nurses to taking one patient at a time, or two if that is safe.
Michigan’s Registered Nurses are frequently forced to care for too many patients at once, and patients are being harmed as a result, according to an independent survey that is the first of its kind ever done in Michigan.
many patients, including preventable patient deaths.
The Michigan Nurses Association is advocating for the Safe Patient Care Act (HB 5013 and SB 574), which would establish minimum nurse-to-patient ratios in all hospitals, ban the rampant use of overtime and requires accountability and transparency on staffing from hospitals. The legislation has bipartisan support in both chambers, with 42 legislators signing on.
While the committee meeting was not a hearing on legislation per se, it reflects the growing interest in RN staffing and hospital safety among legislators on both sides of the aisle.