Urge Legislators to Pass “Patient Safety Act” and

“Hospital Profit Transparency & Fairness Act”

Health care advocates, citizen groups, and nurses will testify Monday on two critically important issues affecting the health care of every resident in Massachusetts, as the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing holds a hearing on two ballot initiatives that garnered more than 200,000 signatures from Massachusetts voters last fall.

The Patient Safety Act will dramatically improve patient safety in Massachusetts’ hospitals by setting safe, realistic, and prudent standards on the maximum number of patients that can be safely cared for by hospital nurses at any one time. Researchers will present new and powerful studies providing irrefutable evidence that Massachusetts’ low standards for patient safety and the lack of safe maximum patient limits for nurses are the key reason Massachusetts ranks 42nd, worst in the nation for avoidable hospital readmissions, The research will also provide the first analysis of how poorly patients’ access to nursing care in Massachusetts hospitals compares to California hospitals, where a similar law has been in place for nearly a decade.

The Hospital Profit Transparency & Fairness Act will guarantee the taxpayers’ right to know exactly how their health care dollars are spent by hospital administrators. The transparency act requires that hospitals receiving tax subsidies disclose in a timely and fully transparent manner how large their profit margins are, how much money they hold in offshore accounts and how much compensation they pay their CEOs. When hospitals are closing pediatric, detox and psychiatric units, policymakers have the right to know if tax dollars are being spent to benefit patient safety or hospital CEOs. To ensure access to needed services by all patients, the act also provides enhanced funding options for hospitals serving poorer populations. For information on both measures, visit: www.PatientSafetyAct.com

When: Monday, March 24, 2014 11 a.m.

Where: Gardner Auditorium, State House

Who: Nurses from different areas of the state will participate in the hearing

and be available for interviews by the local media. Researchers will also be available at the hearing to discuss the findings from the new studies.

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Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the largest professional health care organization and the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its 23,000 members advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public. The MNA is also a founding member of National Nurses United, the largest national nurses union in the United States with more than 170,000 members from coast to coast.