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Article Date: 02/12/2010

Hospitals Increasing Nurse Ratio to Provide Better Care & Working Conditions
The biggest expense for a hospital is usually is labor, and the largest labor expense is for nurses. Therefore, to reduce costs, Tufts Medical Center states that they will be able to save around $3 million annually by increasing the nurse to patient ratio. The reason behind this move is not primarily due to cost - they state that they want to improve care and working conditions for nurses. In order to make this possible, they are having to free the nurses up from unskilled jobs. The hospital is hiring 35 technicians to transport patients, image testing, tracking down meals, and other unskilled tasks.

Many nurses are not taking the news well. Requiring nurses to care for so many patients who are in such ill health can be dangerous. The Massachusetts Nurses Association organized a protest at Boston Medical Center yesterday, which plans to increase the number of patients assigned to some nurses from two to three. Karen Nelson, a nurse and senior vice president of clinical affairs for the Massachusetts Hospital Association, said the deciding factor will be whether the hospital is able to maintain good results for patients.

Website Address: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/02/12/costs_on_rise_nurses_protest_staffing_changes/