Mandatory Overtime HB 1371 & SB 5368
Extends protection of mandatory overtime for nurses to additional settings
such as jails, state hospitals, and state veterans’ homes and closes loopholes
in current law. Long hours take a toll on mental alertness and requiring nurses
to work overtime when they are already exhausted can result in serious medical mistakes,
medication errors, transcription errors and errors in judgment. Strictly limiting
the use of mandatory overtime is an important step toward improving patient safety
and nurse retention. The House bill received a hearing and passed out of Commerce
& Labor Committee, but did not pass this session. We will be back next year
to work on this important issue.
Safe Patient Handling HB 1672
Health care is one of the highest risk settings for musculoskeletal injuries with
nurses among the most injured. This legislation will be critical in protecting nurses
from musculoskeletal injuries through “no manual lift” policies and
other safe patient handling initiatives. It will reduce injuries to patients
and enhance patient safety by requiring each hospital to establish a patient care
activities program with input from frontline health care workers that addresses
safe patient handling. This bill did pass the Legislature, which makes it
the best law on safe patient lifting in the country. See article on this issue
for more details.
Safe RN Staffing HB 1372
In order to ensure safe patient care, we must have adequate RN staffing in our hospitals.
WSNA is advocating for legislation to require hospitals to develop and implement,
with input from registered nurses providing direct patient care, a staffing plan
for nursing services that is based on the patient care needs and the appropriate
skill mix of registered nurses and other nursing personnel. This bill did
not pass the Legislature but it is a critical issue that we will continue to work
on in the interim.
Nursing Education Funding
Nursing programs in WA State are turning away hundreds of qualified students every
year due to a lack of funding for enrollment slots, lack of funding to recruit and
retain qualified nursing faculty, and lack of physical capacity. The following
items are included in the budget:
- Nursing Faculty Pilot Project – Funding of $140,000 is provided
to implement a nursing faculty retention and recruitment pilot project. Yakima valley
community college and another community college located (to be selected by the Washington
State Board for Community and Technical Colleges) in the western part of the state
will receive funding to raise the nursing faculty salaries by $10,000 for fiscal
year 2007. The Board will issue its findings on the pilot project's
impact on nursing faculty retention and recruitment to the Legislature by January
1, 2007. While this is not a large amount money, it is the very first time
that we have been successful in earmarking money specifically for nursing faculty.
- Faculty Increments $1.5 Million- Funding is provided for additional
faculty increments at the community and technical colleges. The amount provided
shall be allocated proportionally to part-time and full-time faculty based on their
respective salary bases.
- Health Care Partnerships $150,000 - Matching funds are provided
for strategic statewide partnerships with health care providers or facilities to
address the health work force shortage. Partnerships may include efforts to increase
the capacity of community and technical colleges to educate students enrolled in
health professions programs, improve retention of health care workers, improve knowledge
of the health industry work force, and increase the number of youth and diverse
populations in the health work force.
- High-Demand Enrollments $140,000 - Funding is provided for 187
high demand enrollments at an average state subsidy rate of $8,000 per FTE enrollment
per year. High demand fields are programs where enrollment access is limited and
employers are experiencing difficulty finding qualified graduates to fill job openings.
- High-Demand Enrollments - Funding is provided for the higher education
coordinating board to contract with regional universities and The Evergreen State
College to provide high demand enrollments. Funding is sufficient to provide 80
enrollments at an average state subsidy rate of $11,000 per FTE enrollment per year.
- Part-Time Health Benefits - Funding is provided to maintain health
care benefits for part-time academic employees at community and technical colleges
as outlined in Second Substitute House Bill 2583 (comm and tech college employee).
If this legislation is not passed by June 30, 2006, this funding will lapse.
Medical Liability Reform – WSNA worked with the stakeholders
(the hospital, medical and trial lawyers association) and encourage lawmakers to
reach a compromise on this issue after the defeat of both I-330 and 336. The
legislation that passed the Legislature did provide several key components:
- Requires medical facilities to report adverse events and incidents, and requires
the Department of Health to investigate.
- Increases public membership of the Medical Quality Assurance Commission by two additional
public members.
- Holds the insurance industry accountable by requiring prior approval by the state
insurance commissioner of malpractice insurance rate increases and broader reporting
of resolved claims.
- Implements a truly voluntary arbitration option that expedites medical malpractice
cases and greatly reduces costs to both sides.
- Plaintiffs' lawyers would be required to have malpractice claims reviewed by a medical
professional from the discipline involved in the case.
- Doctors would be able to apologize for a medical mistake without the apology being
used against them in court.
Public Health Funding SB 6635– Public health is the center
of a quality health care system and is the most cost effective system for disease
prevention and health improvement. Public health is also our first line of
defense in responding to bioterrorism and in disaster preparedness. Washington State
must make an immediate investment towards improving the public health system’s
capacity to respond to pandemic flu and other infectious disease. The
legislation passed both chambers and there is $2 million in the budget for the implementation
of this legislation for pandemic flu preparation.
Health Care Access – Due to the budget surplus, there were
several provisions in the budget to expand health care access. The highlights
include:
- BHP Enrollment Expansion $15,124,000
for the creation of 6500 new BHP positions
- Children's Health Program
14,200 children will be covered in the Children's Health Program,
an increase of over 7,000 from last year. This will go a long way to reduce
the waiting list for this program for low income immigrant children. This victory
is an important step in the campaign for health coverage for all children by 2010.
- Affordable Health Care - $200,000
Funding is provided for the one-time expense of staffing and support of a joint
legislative and executive task force that, by December 2006, is to recommend to
the Governor and the Legislature a five-year action plan for substantially improving
access to affordable health care.
Ban on Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs) HB 1488 & SB 5515
PBDEs are widely used as flame retardants in many products such as mattress,
furniture, electronics and computers. These toxic flame retardants persist
in the environment, build up in the food chain and in our bodies, and are toxic
low levels. PBDEs impair memory, learning and can affect thyroid hormones and other
bodily functions. The legislation would ban the manufacture and sale of the
products containing PBDEs. WSNA supported this bill as a member of the WA
Toxics Coalition. Unfortunately, even with strong support, this bill did not
pass the Legislature.
