Study: Low Staff Levels Lead to Poor Patient Outcomes
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has recently issued a new synthesis of research studies funded by AHRQ and others that indicates that hospitals with lower nurse staffing levels, nurses who spent less time with patients, or fewer registered nurses tend to have higher rates of poor patient outcomes - including pneumonia, shock, cardiac arrest, ...... more

Legislation Proposed for Safe Staffing Levels at Health Care Facilities
In conjunction with National Nurses Day, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) announced new federal legislation that sets mandatory nurse-to-patient staffing standards to protect patients in healthcare facilities. The Nurse Staffing for Patient Safety and Quality Care Act of 2004 establishes minimum staffing levels for different hospital units. Once these minimums ...... more

Injury Rates a Problem at Nursing Homes
OSHA Statistics Reveal Some Disturbing Facts Health care workers at nursing homes who spend hours bending over, lifting and twisting are among the most often injured workers in the country, according to data complied and released by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The federal agency responsible for workplace safety, OSHA has ...... more

Short Staffing/Hours of Work
Is Short Staffing and Unsafe Working Conditions Wearing You Down? Add to Your Clout in the Workplace The Steelworkers' Health Care Workers Council provides experienced negotiators to help you collective bargain effectively with the administration on short staffing concerns and unsafe working conditions. Our health care contracts include health and safety ...... more

Job Stress
What Causes Job Stress? Our informal discussions with workers have resulted in the following explanations for why workers are stressed out at work: Mergers, downsizing and budget cuts: When companies merge or downsize, or when there are budget cuts in the public sector, remaining workers have to do more work. De-skilling: Workers sometimes lose their ...... more

Facts on Mandatory Overtime
Why nurses care so much about the issue of mandatory overtime Mandatory overtime contributes to poor quality patient care because fatigue which results from excessive overtime increases the likelihood of errors. According to a study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Division of Biomedical and Behavioral Science, when staff ...... more

Health & Safety
The Smallpox Vaccine: What Health Care Workers Need to Know -- February 2003 (PDF) How Can You Protect Yourself from Retaliation if You Need to Complain about a Dangerous Job? (PDF) Ergonomic Job Design: Eliminating and Reducing Risk Factors for Musculoskeletal Disorder MSD Resource Handout (musculoskeltal disorders) (PDF) Worker OSHA ...... more

Ergonomic Job Design
ERGONOMIC JOB DESIGN: ELIMINATING AND REDUCING RISK FACTORS FOR MUSCULOSKELETAL DISORDERS Musculoskeletal disorders do not have to happen. After identifying risk factors for musculoskeletal disorders on a job, the second step in ergonomic job design/redesign is to identify ways to change the job that would eliminate/reduce those risk factors. Jobs should ...... more

Work Restructuring
Management is in the process of restructuring work in health care. Workplaces that used to be relatively stable are now going through major reorganization from top to bottom. New technologies are being introduced that automate functions, monitor the workforce, de-skill jobs (even as they require new skills), and generally change the nature of care. ...... more