The House Bill 476 The Health Care Facilities Act, And...

Introduction House Bill 476 (H.B. 476) is being reintroduced to amend Public Law 130, Number 48, also known as the Health Care Facilities Act, of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, to provide professional nurse staffing standards that address patient safety and the delivery of quality nursing care to patients. Adverse patient outcomes have been correlated with insufficient levels of professional nurse staffing. H.B. 476 appoints hospitals responsible to ensure safe and conducive environments for patient care through the use of nurse driven staffing committees. H.B. 476 was introduced to the General Assembly of Pennsylvania on February 17, 2015 by primary sponsor Mauree Gingrich alongside 48 cosponsors. The chief objective of†¦show more content†¦In Support of House Bill 476 Professional Nurse Staffing Standards Inadequate professional nurse staffing levels integrate many social, ethical, economic, and political considerations which can directly impact patient quality outcomes. Requiring hospitals to utilize staffing committees to assign safe professional nurse staffing standards to each unit, reduces the risk for adverse patient measures. High-quality empirical research found a correlation between the professional nursing staff and the quality of patient outcomes (Mason, Leavitt, Chaffee, 2012). By implementing H.B. 476, safer nursing care can be provided and excellence in patient outcomes can be achieved. From a social perspective, H.B. 476 may help narrow the widening gap in supply verse demand of professional nurses needed in acute care settings. Nurses experience high levels of burnout, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of personal accomplishment when compared to other health care professionals (Khamisa, Peltzer, Oldenburg, 2013). The authors relate such high levels of burnout in nurses to the emotional strain they encounter from providing direct personal care to sick and dying patients. Consequently, this has a direct impact on job satisfaction and nurse retention. A survey by the American Nurses Association (ANA) found 74% of nurses proclaim acute or chronic effects of stress and overwork