Safe Staffing Ratios involve how many patients each nurse is assigned to care for in a particular hospital unit. This enhances the quality of patient care at the bedside, reduces risks of medical errors and can improve patient outcomes.

Our goal is to get the NJ Legislature to pass Bill S2700 which would establish minimum registered nurse staffing standards for hospitals and ambulatory surgery facilities and certain DHS facilities.

Nurse staffing shortages in New Jersey, and around the country, has been the norm for so long (decades) that many nurses have worked their entire career in crisis mode. The COVID-19 pandemic only heightened the issue. The unrelenting demands of the profession has exacerbated the crisis, as nurses leave bedside nursing, retire early, or leave the profession altogether.

California has had Safe Staffing legislation in place for years and studies have proven that implementing mandated nurse-to-patient ratios results in improved patient outcomes, fewer patient deaths, and has created safer workplaces for nurses.

Outcomes are better for patients when staffing levels meet those established in California, including an increase in lives saved, shorter hospital stays, and general improvement in quality care (Health Services Research)

Hospitals that staff 1:8 nurse-to-patient ratios experience five additional deaths per 1,000 patients than a 1:4 nurse-to-patient ratio. (JAMA)

Each additional patient assigned to a nurse, the odds of dying within 30 days of admission increases by 7%.(JAMA).

Understaffing is a contributing factor in up to 80 percent of medical errors. (Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality)

The higher the proportion of nurses in hospitals whose patient assignment is in compliance with the benchmark set on California-mandated ratios, the lower the nurse burnout and job dissatisfaction, the less likely nurses are to report the quality of their work environment as only fair or poor, the less likely nurses are to report that their workload causes them to miss changes in patients' conditions, and the less likely nurses are to intend to leave their jobs. (Health Services Research)