Dayton to sign bill to study nurse staffing levels at Minn. hospitals after lawmaker signoff

ST. PAUL, Minnesota — The truce between hospitals and a nurses union over staffing levels has been sent in legislative form to Gov. Mark Dayton's desk.

The House voted 76-56 on Monday for a bill seeking regular reporting and a study of care personnel levels in hospital units. A spokeswoman for Dayton says he intends to sign the bill.

Each hospital would be required to develop, publish and update a core staffing plan. That data would likely feed into a Department of Health study that will aim to determine if there is a correlation between staffing and patient outcomes.

The bill is a compromise that averts mandatory staffing levels in law, as the Minnesota Nurses Association first sought. Hospital officials argued that statutory ratios are cumbersome and would put small facilities at risk.

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