As Introduced

132nd General Assembly

Regular Session S. B. No. 55

2017-2018

Senator Skindell

Cosponsor: Senator Williams

A BILL

To amend sections 3727.50, 3727.51, 3727.52, and 3727.53 and to enact sections 3727.80 to 3727.88 of the Revised Code to establish minimum ratios of direct-care registered nurses to patients in hospitals, to specify rights of registered nurses working in hospitals, and to prohibit retaliatory actions by hospitals against registered nurses.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF OHIO:

Section 1. That sections 3727.50, 3727.51, 3727.52, and 3727.53 be amended and sections 3727.80, 3727.81, 3727.82, 3727.83, 3727.84, 3727.85, 3727.86, 3727.87, and 3727.88 of the Revised Code be enacted to read as follows:

Sec. 3727.50. As used in this section and sections 3727.51 to 3727.57 of the Revised Code:

(A) "Direct patient care" means care provided by a nurse with direct responsibility to carry out medical regimens or nursing care for one or more patients.

(B) "Direct-care registered nurse" means a registered nurse who provides direct patient care.

(C) "Inpatient care unit" means a hospital unit, including an operating room or other inpatient care area, in which nursing care is provided to patients who have been admitted to the hospital.

(C) (D) "Nurse" means a person who is licensed to practice as a registered nurse under Chapter 4723. of the Revised Code or, if the hospital employs licensed practical nurses, a person who is licensed to practice as a licensed practical nurse under that chapter.

Sec. 3727.51. (A) Each hospital shall convene a hospital-wide nursing care committee not later than ninety days after the effective date of this section September 12, 2008, or, if the hospital is not treating patients on the effective date of this section September 12, 2008, ninety days after the hospital begins to treat patients. The hospital shall select the members of the committee, subject to all of the following:

(1) The hospital's chief nursing officer shall be included as a member of the committee.

(2) At least fifty per cent of the committee's membership shall consist of direct-care registered nurses who provide direct patient care in the hospital. If the direct-care registered nurses are represented under a collective bargaining agreement, the authorized collective bargaining agent shall appoint the committee members who are direct-care registered nurses.

(3) The number of registered nurses included as members of the committee shall be sufficient to provide adequate representation of all types of nursing care services provided in the hospital.

(B) The committee member who is the hospital's chief nursing officer shall establish a mechanism for obtaining input from nurses in all inpatient care units who provide direct patient care regarding what the nursing services staffing plan recommendations described in division (B) of section 3727.52 of the Revised Code should include.

Sec. 3727.52. A hospital-wide nursing care committee convened pursuant to section 3727.51 of the Revised Code shall do both of the following:

(A) If one exists, evaluate the hospital's current nursing services staffing plan;

(B) Recommend a nursing services staffing plan that is, at a minimum, consistent with current standards established by private accreditation organizations or governmental entities and addresses all of the following:

(1) The selection, implementation, and evaluation of minimum staffing levels for all inpatient care units that ensure that the hospital has a staff of competent nurses with the specialized skills needed to meet patient needs in accordance with evidence-based safe nurse staffing standards;

(2) The complexity of complete care, assessment on patient admission, volume of patient admissions, discharges and transfers, evaluation of the progress of a patient's problems, the amount of time needed for patient education, ongoing physical assessments, planning for a patient's discharge, assessment after a change in patient condition, and assessment of the need for patient referrals;

(3) Patient acuity and the number of patients for whom care is being provided;

(4) The need for ongoing assessments of a unit's patients and its nursing staff levels;

(5) The hospital's policy for identifying additional nurses who can provide direct patient care when patients' unexpected needs exceed the planned workload for direct care staff.

Sec. 3727.53. (A) In accordance with division (B) of this section, each hospital shall create an evidence-based a written nursing services staffing plan guiding the assignment of nurses hospital-wide other than direct-care registered nurses assigned pursuant to sections 3727.81 and 3727.82 of the Revised Code. The

The staffing plan shall be implemented not later than ninety days after the hospital-wide nursing care committee is convened pursuant to section 3727.51 of the Revised Code, except that if the hospital's next fiscal year starts not later than one hundred eighty days after the date on which the committee convenes, implementation may be delayed until the first day of that fiscal year.

(B) The staffing plan created under this section shall, at a minimum, reflect current standards established by private accreditation organizations or governmental entities. The plan shall be based on multiple nurse and patient considerations that yield minimum staffing levels for inpatient care units that ensure that the hospital has a staff of competent nurses with specialized skills needed to meet patient needs. These considerations shall include both of the following:

(1) The recommendations of the hospital-wide nursing care committee made under section 3727.52 of the Revised Code, which shall be given significant consideration;

(2) All of the matters listed in divisions (B)(1) to (5) of section 3727.52 of the Revised Code.

Sec. 3727.80. As used in sections 3727.80 to 3727.88 of the Revised Code:

(A) "Artificial life support" means a technological system used to aid, support, or replace a vital function of the body.

(B) "Direct-care registered nurse" has the same meaning as in section 3727.50 of the Revised Code.

(C) "Nursing intervention" means a determination by a direct-care registered nurse, before a medical order or treatment plan is implemented, that the order or plan is in the best interest of the patient.

(D) "Professional judgment" means application of a direct-care registered nurse's knowledge, skill, expertise, and experience in making decisions about patient care.

(E) "Technical support" means specialized equipment; providing for invasive monitoring, telemetry, or mechanical ventilation; or the immediate amelioration or remediation of severe pathology for a patient requiring less care than that provided by an intensive care unit but more than that provided by a medical-surgical unit.

Sec. 3727.81. (A) Each hospital shall maintain the following direct-care registered nurse-to-patient ratios:

(1) One direct-care registered nurse for each of the following:

(a) A patient in an operating room;

(b) A patient receiving conscious sedation;

(c) A trauma or critical care patient in an emergency department;

(d) An active labor patient, patient with medical or obstetrical complications, or patient for whom the nurse initiates epidural anesthesia and circulation for cesarean delivery;

(e) An unstable newborn or newborn in a resuscitation period;

(f) Every three of the following: a healthy mother-infant couplet or, if a mother has delivered multiple infants, a healthy mother-infant group that includes not more than three of her infants.

(2)(a) One direct-care registered nurse for every two patients in each of the following units who is not a patient listed in division (A)(1) of this section:

(i) An intensive care unit;

(ii) A critical care unit for patients whose medical conditions require continuous monitoring, complex nursing interventions, restorative measures, and intensive nursing care through direct observation;

(iii) A neonatal intensive care unit;

(iv) A burn unit;

(v) A postanesthesia recovery unit, regardless of the type of anesthesia patients receive.

(b) One direct-care registered nurse for every two patients during the immediate postpartum period.

(3)(a) One direct-care registered nurse for every three patients in each of the following units who is not a patient listed in division (A)(1) or (2)(b) of this section:

(i) A step-down unit for patients whose severity of illness, including all comorbidities, restorative measures, and level of nursing intensity, requires any of the following: intermediate intensive care, monitoring, multiple assessments, specialized nursing interventions, evaluations, education of the patient's family or other representatives, or technical support but not necessarily artificial life support as a result of moderate or potentially severe physiologic instability;

(ii) A pediatric unit;

(iii) A telemetry unit designated for electronic monitoring, recording, retrieval, and display of cardiac electrical signals for patients whose severity of illness, including all comorbidities, restorative measures, and level of nursing intensity, requires intermediate intensive care, monitoring, multiple assessments, specialized nursing interventions, evaluation, or education of the patient's family or other representatives.

(b) One direct-care registered nurse for every three antepartum patients who are not in active labor or three mother-and-infant couplets in a postpartum area.

(4)(a) One direct-care registered nurse for every four patients in each of the following units who is not a patient listed in division (A)(1), (2)(b), or (3)(b) of this section:

(i) A medical-surgical unit for patients whose severity of illness requires continuous care through direct observation, including units for patients requiring less than intensive care or step-down care, receiving twenty-four-hour inpatient general medical care, post-surgical care, or both general medical and post-surgical care, or with diverse diagnoses and diverse age groups, but not units with pediatric patients;

(ii) A presurgical, admissions, or ambulatory surgical unit;

(iii) A psychiatric unit;

(iv) Any other specialty unit.

(b) One direct-care registered nurse for every four of the following patients:

(i) Patients in an emergency department who are not trauma or critical care patients;

(ii) Mothers in an obstetrics unit who are not included in division (A)(1)(f) of this section;

(iii) Postpartum or postgynecological surgery patients;

(iv) Recently born infants with no unusual medical needs who are not included in division (A)(1)(f) of this section.

(5)(a) One direct-care registered nurse for every five patients in each of the following units:

(i) A rehabilitation unit that is used to restore an ill or injured patient to the highest level of self-sufficiency or gainful employment of which the patient is capable in the shortest possible time, compatible with the patient's physical, intellectual, emotional, and psychological capabilities, and in accordance with planned goals and objectives;

(ii) A skilled nursing unit that is used for the provision of skilled nursing care and supportive care to patients whose primary need is for skilled nursing care on a long-term basis and patients who are admitted after at least a forty-eight-hour period of continuous inpatient care and that provides activities and such services as medical, nursing, dietary, and pharmaceutic services.

(b) One direct-care registered nurse for every five infants in a well-baby nursery.

(6) The ratios determined in accordance with section 3727.82 of the Revised Code for units and circumstances not specified in divisions (A)(1) to (5) of this section.

(B) The ratios listed in division (A) of this section are the minimum ratios of direct-care registered nurses to patients that a hospital is required to maintain at all times.

(C) Identifying a unit or circumstance other than as described in division (A) of this section does not affect the duty of a hospital to maintain the direct-care registered nurse-to-patient ratios listed in division (A) of this section.

Sec. 3727.82. (A) For each hospital unit not listed in section 3727.81 of the Revised Code, the hospital-wide nursing care committee convened under section 3727.51 of the Revised Code shall, using the factors specified in division (B) of this section, determine which unit listed in section 3727.81 of the Revised Code has patient needs most similar to those of the unit that is not listed in that section. The committee shall communicate the results of the determination to the administrators of the hospital. The hospital administrators shall ensure that the appropriate direct-care registered nurse-to-patient ratio is implemented for the unit not later than thirty days after the committee makes the determination.

(B) The hospital-wide nursing care committee shall consider all of the following factors when making a determination required by division (A) of this section:

(1) The registered nursing care requirements for individual patients based on the severity of patient illness;

(2) The intensity of the nursing interventions and complexity of the professional judgment required to design, implement, and evaluate each patient's nursing care plan consistent with professional standards;

(3) The ability of each patient to provide self-care, regardless of motor, sensory, and cognitive deficits;

(4) The need for patient advocacy;

(5) The licensure of the personnel required for care;

(6) The patient care delivery system;

(7) The hospital's physical layout;

(8) The generally accepted standards of nursing practice;

(9) The elements that are unique to the hospital's patient population.

(C) A hospital shall implement the ratios established under this section not later than thirty days after the hospital administrators are informed of them.

Sec. 3727.83. Each hospital shall post daily, on a shift-by-shift basis, in a conspicuous place visible to the public, the required number of direct-care registered nurses for each patient and unit as determined under sections 3727.81 and 3727.82 of the Revised Code, the actual number of direct-care registered nurses for each patient and unit for that shift, and any difference between the two.

Each hospital shall provide each patient admitted to the hospital for inpatient care the telephone number of the toll-free patient safety telephone line made available to the public by the department of health under section 3701.91 of the Revised Code for reporting inadequate staffing or care in the hospital. The patient may use the telephone number to report inadequate staffing or care at the hospital.

Sec. 3727.84. (A) As used in this section, "competency" means the ability of a direct-care registered nurse to act and integrate the knowledge, skills, abilities, and professional judgment in a manner that promotes safe, therapeutic, and effective patient care.

(B) No hospital shall knowingly do any of the following regarding the direct-care registered nurse-to-patient ratios required by sections 3727.81 and 3727.82 of the Revised Code:

(1) Assign a direct-care registered nurse to a unit unless the hospital and nurse jointly determine that the nurse demonstrates competency in providing care in that unit and the nurse has completed orientation to the unit sufficient to provide safe, therapeutic, and effective care to patients in that unit;

(2) Average the number of patients and the number of direct-care registered nurses on a unit during any one shift or over any period of time;

(3) Include in the calculation of the direct-care registered nurse-to-patient ratio any of the following: nurse administrators, supervisors, managers, charge nurses, case managers, or triage, radio, or flight nurses;

(4) Impose mandatory overtime on any direct-care registered nurse in order to meet the required direct-care registered nurse-to-patient ratio;

(5) Impose layoffs of licensed practical nurses or other ancillary or supportive personnel within the hospital as a means of meeting the required ratios;

(6) Allow a nurse who is not a direct-care registered nurse to relieve a direct-care registered nurse during a break, meal, or other routine, expected absence from a unit;

(7) Use video cameras or monitors or any other form of electronic visualization of a patient as a substitute for the direct observation that is needed for the assessment of a patient by a direct-care registered nurse;

(8) Assign a patient to a particular unit within the hospital unless the unit's level of intensity, type of care, and direct-care registered nurse-to-patient ratio meet the patient's needs;

(9) Create or use units within the hospital that are adjustable according to patient acuity.

(C) Each hospital shall establish criteria for determining competency for purposes of division (B)(1) of this section. The hospital shall include the criteria in the hospital's policies and procedures.

Sec. 3727.85. (A) A registered nurse employed by a hospital has the right and duty to act as an advocate for the nurse's patients, as circumstances require, by doing any of the following:

(1) Initiating action to improve health care practices in the hospital, including providing professional input on the methods of patient care documentation and the number of ancillary and support staff, such as physical therapists, respiratory therapists, social workers, and patient lifting, transportation, housekeeping, and security personnel, who should be available and present to supplement the work of registered nurses;

(2) Advocating and monitoring activities to ensure hospital compliance with implementation of the nursing services staffing plan created under section 3727.53 of the Revised Code and assuring safe registered nurse staffing levels at the unit level;

(3) Determining whether a health information technology software program or tool displaces registered nurses from patient care, interferes with the nursing process, or otherwise compromises a registered nurse's professional judgment;

(4) Giving patients an opportunity to make informed decisions regarding their health care before the care is provided.

(B) A registered nurse employed by a hospital may object to, or refuse to participate in, any activity, policy, practice, assignment, or task if, in good faith, the nurse believes the activity, policy, practice, assignment, or task violates sections 3727.81 to 3727.84 of the Revised Code or division (A) of this section. With respect to an assignment, the nurse may refuse to complete the assignment if the nurse is not prepared by education, training, or experience to complete the assignment without compromising patient safety or jeopardizing the nurse's license to practice by creating the potential for professional disciplinary action by the board of nursing.

Sec. 3727.86. (A) A hospital shall not discharge, retaliate against, discriminate against, or otherwise take adverse action against a registered nurse with respect to any aspect of the nurse's employment based on the nurse's refusal to complete an assignment as described in division (B) of section 3727.85 of the Revised Code. Actions prohibited under this division include demoting the nurse, decreasing the nurse's compensation, and negatively altering the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment.

(B) A hospital shall not file a complaint against a registered nurse with the board of nursing based on the nurse's refusal to complete an assignment as described in division (B) of section 3727.85 of the Revised Code.

(C) A hospital shall not discriminate or retaliate against any individual for opposing any hospital policy, practice, or action that is alleged to violate sections 3727.81 to 3727.85 of the Revised Code.

(D) A hospital, or an individual representing a hospital, shall not do either of the following:

(1) Interfere with, restrain, or deny the exercise of, or attempt to deny the exercise of, a right conferred by sections 3727.81 to 3727.85 of the Revised Code;

(2) Coerce or intimidate any individual regarding the exercise of, or an attempt to exercise, a right conferred by sections 3727.81 to 3727.85 of the Revised Code.

Sec. 3727.87. (A) A hospital that fails to comply with sections 3727.81 to 3727.86 of the Revised Code is subject to a fine imposed by the department of health. For each failure, the department shall impose a fine of not more than twenty-five thousand dollars and an additional fine of not more than ten thousand dollars per nursing unit shift until the offense or violation is corrected.

(B) On request of the director of health, the attorney general shall bring and prosecute to judgment a civil action to collect any fine imposed under division (A) of this section that remains unpaid.

(C) All fines collected under this section shall be deposited into the state treasury to the credit of the general operations fund created under section 3701.83 of the Revised Code.

Sec. 3727.88. (A) A registered nurse has a cause of action against a hospital for violation of section 3727.86 of the Revised Code. The nurse may commence the action by filing a civil action in the court of common pleas of the county in which the hospital is located.

(B) A nurse who prevails on a cause of action commenced under this section is entitled to any one or more of the following remedies:

(1) Reinstatement to the position the nurse had before the hospital violated section 3727.86 of the Revised Code;

(2) Reimbursement of lost wages, compensation, and benefits;

(3) Attorneys' fees;

(4) Court costs;

(5) Any other damages the court considers appropriate.

Section 2. That existing sections 3727.50, 3727.51, 3727.52, and 3727.53 of the Revised Code are hereby repealed.

Section 3. (A) As used in this section, "direct-care registered nurse" has the same meaning as in section 3727.50 of the Revised Code.

(B) It is the intent of the General Assembly to recognize all of the following:

(1) That each direct-care registered nurse employed by a hospital in this state has the right to do all of the following:

(a) Provide safe, therapeutic, effective, and competent nursing care to patients;

(b) Have the necessary knowledge, judgment, skills, and ability to provide the required care before accepting a patient assignment;

(c) Determine whether the nurse is clinically competent to perform the required care in a particular unit, or with a particular diagnosis, condition, prognosis, or other determinative characteristics of nursing care;

(d) Recognize that the nurse is not clinically competent to perform the required care and not accept the patient care assignment;

(e) Assess each medical order, and prior to acting on the order, determine whether the order is in the best interest of the patient and was initiated by a person legally authorized to initiate it;

(f) Perform continuous and ongoing patient assessments of each patient's condition, including direct observation of the patient's signs and symptoms of illness; reaction to treatment; behavior and physical condition; interpretation of information obtained from the patient and others, including other caregivers on the health team; and data collection and analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of the data;

(g) Plan, implement, and evaluate the nursing care provided to each patient.

(2) That the assessment, nursing diagnosis, planning, intervention, evaluation and, as circumstances require, patient advocacy, should be initiated by a direct-care registered nurse at the time of the patient's admission to a hospital and continue as long as the patient remains in the hospital;

(3) That the refusal to accept a patient care assignment is an exercise of the direct-care registered nurse's duty and right of patient advocacy;

(4) That only direct-care registered nurses are authorized to perform patient assessments, although licensed practical nurses may assist direct-care registered nurses in data collection.