Posted on 06/29/2009 6:01:46 AM PDT by Born Conservative
HARRISBURG - A state law viewed as a major advancement for workplace safety and patient safety goes into effect Wednesday.
Act 102 of 2008 bans mandatory overtime for health-care workers except in specific situations such as a natural disaster, public health emergency or where unexpected absences could affect patient safety.
Nurses, nurses' assistants and direct caregivers in health care facilities covered by the law can volunteer for overtime, but those who refuse overtime can't be disciplined or discharged. The law doesn't apply to physicians, physician assistants, dentists and offices of private and group practices.
The law was enacted last fall after seven years of lobbying by the Service Employees International Union which represents nurses and other health care workers. Advocates say banning mandatory overtime will leave health care workers less fatigued, and therefore, less likely to make mistakes. The law reflects compromises that address health industry concerns about being short-staffed during emergencies.
Officials at the Department of Labor and Industry say they are ready to enforce the law, investigate complaints, issue corrective orders and levy fines for violations. Employers can face fines ranging from $100 to $1,000 per violation. In Northeast Pennsylvania, enforcement will be handled by L&I's Bureau of Labor Law Compliance at the Scranton State Office Building in Scranton.
In the meantime, the task of drawing up regulations to implement all facets of the law will continue.
"The law will be enforced even with the absence of regulations," deputy L&I Secretary Robert O'Brien told the House Labor Relations Committee at a hearing last week.
The department's Web site at www.dli.state.pa.us provides information about Act 102 and a complaint form for workers to report violations.
Even before the law has taken effect, officials are facing questions about whether workplace practices such as "on-call time" could be used to circumvent the mandatory overtime ban. On-call time is when an employee is told to be available to return to work on short notice.
At the hearing, Rep. Kevin Murphy, D-Scranton, said he has received complaints from nurses in the Scranton area about the routine use of on-call nurses to fill gaps in the schedule. At one facility, on-call nurses work three or four nights a week because no one is scheduled to work those hours, he added. Murphy later declined to identify the facility.
Rep. Neal Goodman, D-Mahanoy City, said he's concerned about a practice where a work schedule is posted with gaps in shift coverage and no effort made to fill those gaps until the last minute.
The law permits the use of on-call time, but not as a means to address chronic staff shortages or get around the mandatory overtime ban, said James Holzman, an official in L&I's labor law compliance division.
I could run a train through that loophole.
Plus, it really offers no protection against short staffing.
Act 102 of 2008 bans mandatory overtime for health-care workers except in specific situations such as a natural disaster, public health emergency or where unexpected absences could affect patient safety.
Ya think????
How do you hire more licensed employees when none are available?
I agree, mandatory overtime is a sign of insufficient staffing IMHO.
Most of the nurses I know do something else now or they work in a doctor’s office or are school nurses, none of them work in hospitals. They got burned out from 16-18 sometimes 24 hr days.
The monopolistic application of power ...
This is never simple in most hospitals and many comments were probably made by those who have never worked in one. Patient acuity changes and staff call-ins occur. Predicting what the staffing levels should be is difficult to impossible. Just wait for “rationed” health care and cuts in hospital payments which is put forth as a cost saving measure now. Qualified staff do not “grow on trees” either. If you think it is bad now just wait.
I’m not sure if it’s law, but at the hospital I work at (a very large medical center), we are not allowed to work beyond 16 hours in a day, although I think on-call is different.
Course management is so focused on the bottom line that many times when it looks like the census will be down, supervisors will start calling nurses and telling them that they don't need to come in for their shift. Of course, there is a chance that things will change, the ER will get more patients than expected that need to be admitted and then the superviors are looking for units that have enough staff. Not enough staff, patients lay around in the ER for hours till the next shift comes in. It can look like one big chess game sometimes.
We don't have "on-call" provisions for bedside nursing but certain departments such as surgery, evening, night and weekend ultrasound and other diagnostic testing, biomed repair work does. The staff for these departments usually average just one on-call day a month so it really doesn't interfere with their lives too, too much.
I certainly don’t want to be cared for by a nurse that has already put in 12 hours of work that day - on her 6th or 7th straight day of work! The chance of medication error is enormous.
Usually, the scenario is that a nurse either calls in on short notice or is delayed in getting to work. In order to maintain nurse-to-patient ratios, a nurse may be told to stay on until another nurse is found to take over.
In my hospital, there is no mandatory overtime, thanks to the WSNA. However, a nurse can still voluntarily stay on if asked to do so. In the event of a staffing shortage, the unit will actually close beds in order to maintain a safe nurse-to-patient ratio (1:6 in Med Surg, 1:2 in ICU, 1:3 in Telemetry and ER).
Some very astute observers here have commented that the real issue- staffing shortage- is not addressed. I agree. This is window dressing and will not make anything better. Until the real issue is addressed- lack of new nurses (which is itself a multifaceted dilemma), the problem will only worsen.
Our hospital just got “magnet” status (nothing that gets me to excited, but the administration loves it), but one of the upsides was that they came up with a plan to decrease mandatory overtime. There are very nice financial incentives for people to volunteer to work overtime. It really has decreased the amount of mandatory OT, which makes the hospital happy, and the nursing staff is well compensated. And this was all done without the need for legislation.
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