Essentia Health Calls MN Nurse Staffing Bill Flawed
DULUTH, Minn. — Essentia Health is speaking out against a nurse staffing bill at the Minnesota Legislature. The Keeping Nurses at the Bedside Act would establish committees to set specific staffing levels at hospitals.
The levels would include a limit on the number of patients a nurse should safely care for. The bill’s sponsors believe it will help the crisis around short staffing, retention and patient care.
Essentia says there are serious flaws with the legislation and that skilled care teams need flexibility to make in-the-moment decisions on how best to care for patients, among other concerns.
Below is Essentia’s full news release Wednesday:
Along with hospitals and health systems across Minnesota, Essentia Health continues to express grave concerns about the nurse staffing legislation currently under debate at the Minnesota Legislature. Since the start of the session, we have joined the Minnesota Hospital Association and other health care providers in voicing our opposition to this bill in its current form.
Serious flaws with this legislation include a potential 15% reduction in hospital capacity, which would threaten regular access to care for 70,000 Minnesotans annually, according to the Minnesota Hospital Association (MHA). It also would exacerbate already significant financial and workforce challenges for health systems across the state, especially smaller hospitals in rural communities like the ones Essentia is privileged to serve. Rigid staffing mandates do nothing to solve the nursing shortage in Minnesota, where there are more than 5,000 open nursing positions.
The fact that the Mayo Clinic, the largest health care provider and employer in the state, may be exempted from the mandates in the law speaks to the inadequacy of the legislation to address the problems it is intended to solve. The Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Editorial Board recently called attention to this in an article titled “A red flag from Rochester on nurse staffing rules.”
“The consideration to exempt the Mayo Clinic from this bill further demonstrates the shortcomings of this legislation for all health systems,” says Dr. Bill Heegaard, Essentia Health East Market president. “If lawmakers feel the provisions that would allow for a Mayo exemption are sufficient, those provisions should be available to all hospitals in Minnesota.
“This legislation is a fundamental threat to care for all Minnesotans.”
Additional reports offer a more detailed description of this bill’s many flaws:
- Duluth News Tribune: Our View: Legislating nurse staffing levels threatens care levels
- MHA: Proposed legislation threatens Minnesota’s nonprofit hospitals and healthcare systems
- Duluth News Tribune: Local View: So-called ‘Nurses at the Bedside Act’ would hurt, not help, patients
“Our dedicated and skilled care teams need flexibility to make in-the-moment decisions on how best to care for our patients,” says Dr. Heegaard. “Essentia’s mission calls us to provide high-quality, sustainable health care to our communities – this legislation stands in direct opposition of that goal.”
Essentia health urges lawmakers to heed the warnings from health systems across the state in the final days of working toward a compromise.
