When someone in the Pittsburgh area becomes ill or is injured they generally believe that the hospital will be a place where they will be well taken care of. There, they can be attended to by many doctors and nurses trained to do just that. As anyone who has spent any time in a hospital can attest to, usually the health care provider who spends the most time attending to a patient's needs is a nurse.

There are many reasons that medical errors are committed by nurses in hospitals. Some Pennsylvania politicians believed that the number of patients assigned to each nurse is a part of the problem. Accordingly, they introduced a bill seeking to create mandated ratios between nurses and patients. In addition to keeping patients safe and avoiding medical negligence situations, its goal is to also help keep healthcare costs down.

There appears to be a solid basis behind the idea. According to one of the legislators who introduced the bill, studies indicate that reducing the number of patients assigned to each nurse each shift, results in fewer commissions of medical errors. Currently, only one other state in the country, California, has government mandates regarding these ratios.

Because not all patients experience the same degree of illness or injury, the exact ratios would not be the same across the board. Certain hospital units where patients are seriously injured or very ill would assign fewer patients to each nurse. Those in which patients are in better conditions would see higher patient to nurse ratios.

It is unclear what kind of support the bill will receive from other Pennsylvania legislators. We will provide updates as they arise.

Source: Penn Live, "A pair of Democrats begin push for nurse-patient ratios in Pennsylvania," David Wenner, March 7, 2013