While other public service industries—airlines, for example—are regulated by the government to ensure that there is adequate staffing for safe operations, most hospitals aren’t subject to any minimum nurse staffing laws or regulatory standards. 

But nurses are making their voices heard in the halls of Congress and in statehouses across the country to make minimum nurse-patient ratios the law of the land—and conditions are slowly changing as awareness grows.

UAN supports Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s nurse-patient ratio bill (H.R. 2123), which would establish safe minimum standards for RN staffing at the federal level.  Read more.

While California passed a landmark staffing ratio law in 1999 (implemented in 2004), other state legislatures have since passed or are also closely examining safe staffing legislation.

Read more:

• Massachusetts
  More on the  Massachusetts "Patient Safety Act" to set safe nurse-patient ratios.  
• Michigan
• New York
• Oregon
• Read the legislative summary of Oregon’s law