AONL Explains Opposition to Mandated Staff Ratios

Organizational leaders, nurse managers and direct care nurses ─ not policymakers ─ should align staffing with patient needs, AONL states. Safe staffing is a dynamic process requiring flexibility and nursing clinical judgment to determine the right type and level of care for patients. Mandated nurse staffing standards remove real-time clinical judgement and flexibility from nurses. Ratios also do not consider an individual patient or the health care team’s needs in an ever-changing environment, nor do they account for the variability among health care organizations. Typically based on traditional nursing care models, mandated ratios do not utilize advanced capabilities in technology or interprofessional care teams to support data-driven-decision making and collaborative practice, AONL says. (AONL news release, 7/17/23)