House Passes Healthcare Safe Staffing Standards Bill

ICYMI: Recently Released Polling Shows Three of Four WA Voters Support Establishing Safe Staffing Standards

SEATTLE – Today the Washington State House of Representatives passed the bipartisan House Bill 1868 off the floor by a 55-43 vote.

HB 1868 would create safe staffing standards for healthcare workers in Washington hospitals, protecting healthcare workers from dangerously high patient loads and ensuring patients get the timely, quality care they deserve.

Public polling released last week showed an overwhelming 74% of Washington voters support establishing safe staffing standards, including a supermajority among every political party. The vast majority of voters (89%) said they are concerned about the shortage of healthcare workers, and even more (91%) said they are concerned about burnout among healthcare workers – more than were concerned about their own cost of healthcare.

The claims from hospital executives that there simply aren’t enough healthcare workers to adequately staff Washington hospitals are false. According to data from the Department of Health and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 120,069 active licensed nurses in Washington but only 59,300 actively employed in all healthcare settings, including hospitals. In short, there’s not a shortage of healthcare workers, just a shortage of workers willing to work under these conditions.

Safe staffing standards are the only way to address the statewide hospital staffing crisis in the long term. A comprehensive new report release earlier this month from a leading national nursing policy researcher at George Washington University examined 30 years of studies on nurse staffing and patient outcomes and found that among the legislative approaches to hospital staffing, directly mandating safe staffing standards as proposed in HB 1868 is the only policy that has worked to address healthcare staffing and improve patient outcomes. Additionally, the research showed that when nurses have safer patient loads, fewer patients die and patients leave the hospital faster with better outcomes. In California, safe staffing standards have increased nurse staffing levels and decreased burnout, and at least one study found lower patient mortality as a result.

HB 1868 now advances to the Senate.

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