New York State Health Department to Require Hospitals to Assign One Nurse to Every Two ICU Patients

by M.C. Millman 

In a new regulation from the New York State Health Department, the State's 212 hospitals will be required to assign a minimum of one nurse for every two patients requiring intensive or critical care.

The new rule is expected to be approved on Thursday by the state Public Health and Health Planning Council. 

The regulation falls under the new "Safe Staffing Act approved by the legislature in 2021.

Nurses and other health care activists have advocated for a higher ratio of nurses to patients for years to improve health care resulting in fewer patient deaths. 

"Having more than two patients in an ICU setting is extremely unsafe," Leah Herc MSN, RN, with nearly a decade of critical care experience, shares with BoroPark24. "Having a ratio of one nurse to two patients is the baseline for most hospitals; depending on how critical a patient is, they even require one nurse per patient."

While the industry standard has been one nurse to four patients, in 2021, New York hospitals averaged one nurse per six patients. The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing Center for Health Outcomes report also estimated that 4,370 lives and  $720 million could have been saved over two years by creating an environment conducive to shorter stays and fewer readmissions if there were one nurse for every four patients.

Other staff-to-patient ratios in non-critical settings will require a staffing committee comprised of equal numbers of nurses and hospital administrators to set standards within each hospital. 

Hospitals that violate the mandatory staffing requirement in intensive and critical care units will receive a civil penalty from the health department.