ILEPI-UIUC study calls for unionization, patient limits
Illinois is going to need to add 19,000 nurses over the next decade to deal with the aging Baby Boom generation. (Shutterstock)
By Ted Cox
Illinois needs to take steps now to avoid an impending nurse shortage, according to a new study released Thursday.
“The Illinois Nursing Shortage: Addressing the Need for Safe Patient Limits and Collective Bargaining” comes from the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It calls for patient limits and unionization to meet what’s estimated to be the need for 19,000 new nurses statewide over the next decade.
The study cites the increasing need for health care as the Baby Boom generation ages, which will also manifest itself among nurses, as half are 55 or older now, and one in six is expected to retire over the next five years. It also says that nurses, 89 percent of whom are women, are typically overworked and subject to workplace harassment, which is driving many from the field.
“A number of factors, including below-average wages, high workplace injury rates, and other occupational hazards function as a barrier to retaining the professional nursing workforce that Illinois needs,” said Jill Manzo, one of the report’s three authors. “Failing to confront these issues will only serve to erode the quality of patient care in our state.”
Illinois ranks 22nd in the nation among states for the average nurse’s income, trailing not only neighboring states like Wisconsin and Minnesota, but even states that generally offer lower wages, such as Louisiana and Texas.
A recent survey found that more than 75 percent of nurses reported a problem with workplace violence, including physical attacks, verbal abuse, and sexual harassment. Three-quarters of all registered nurses also reported that understaffing diminishes the quality of their care. The report cited another study that found that insufficient staffing, high patient-to-nurse ratios, and the threat of workplace violence led 30 to 50 percent of all new nurses to change positions or leave the field completely within the first three years.
“Obviously, when nurses are already stretched thin by understaffing and lower wages than their counterparts in other states, the potential for this type of widespread workplace abuse only adds another obstacle to the retention of qualified care providers,” Manzo added.
According to the study, nurses suffer from overexertion, sprains, cuts, workplace violence, sexual harassment, psychological trauma, and other injuries, and Illinois nurses have the second-highest injury rate among their peers in the Midwest.
The study specifically suggests that unionization and setting patient limits would help retain nurses and bring others to the field. As it stands, only 17 percent of Illinois nurses belong to a union.
“The data show that unionization increases an Illinois nurse’s weekly take-home pay by 13 to 15 percent, and increased staffing results in fewer workplace injuries and better patient outcomes,” said study co-author Robert Bruno, a UIUC professor and director of the Project for Middle Class Renewal. “These dynamics not only boost the voices of care providers as patient advocates and the appeal of nursing as a profession, they also reduce employee turnover and injury costs that the current shortage imposes on hospitals and other health-care employers.”
The study encourages Illinois to adopt patient limits like those enacted in California in 2004. California mandated that there be at least one nurse for every two patients in intensive care, three patients in labor and delivery, four patients in pediatrics, five patients in medical-surgical units, and six patients in psychiatrics.
“Hospitals that have implemented above-average nurse staffing levels have a 17 percent lower patient mortality rate,” said co-author Frank Manzo IV, ILEPI’s policy director. “After California implemented safe patient limits for nurses, the likelihood of in-patient death, the time spent in intensive-care units, and hospital readmission rates all fell as well.”
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March 21, 2019 at 01:13PM
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