Abstract
[This is an excerpt.] Unsafe staffing levels in New York’s hospitals undermine the quality of care patients receive. All New Yorkers — from patients, community members, healthcare workers and their unions to legislators and regulators — have a stake in ensuring that the laws and regulations meant to protect patient safety are working well. New York took a major step forward to address patient safety and the nurse staffing crisis when legislators passed a safe staffing law in 2021. The Clinical Staffing Committees and Disclosure of Nursing Quality Indicators law directed all hospitals to set minimum safe staffing standards and established a universal 1:2 nurse-to-patient staffing ratio for critical care patients. Nearly three years after the law was enacted and two years after it became enforceable, New York is at a critical point. The law established an independent advisory commission, which was tasked with releasing a report on the law’s impact in October 2024 and making recommendations to
the legislature in 2025. The Commission has yet to release a report due to the lack of data available to evaluate staffing law progress. To fill the gap in evaluating the safe staffing law, New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) members and staff took the work of gathering staffing data into their own hands, conducting staffing surveys at more than 60 facilities across the state. NYSNA members working in intensive care units (ICUs) and caring for critical patients conducted staffing reports for 532 shifts from 32 critical care units from 20 hospitals across the state. The data from these staffing surveys was compiled to create this report on the current state of the staffing crisis and how well the staffing law is working to address that crisis. [To read more, click View Resource.]
