Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar » Study: Unionized hospitals were better prepared for pandemic
SUBSCRIBE to Capitol Fax      Advertise Here      About     Exclusive Subscriber Content     Updated Posts    Contact Rich Miller
CapitolFax.com
To subscribe to Capitol Fax, click here.
Study: Unionized hospitals were better prepared for pandemic

Tuesday, Jun 30, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Press release

Illinois’ unionized hospitals have dramatically lower staff vacancy and turnover rates, safer workplaces, and more robust infection prevention and control systems while enabling registered nurses to devote substantially more time to care for individual patients, according to new research by the Illinois Economic Policy Institute (ILEPI).

“The global coronavirus pandemic has put new strain on Illinois’ hospitals and a nursing workforce that was already facing severe shortages,” said study co-author and ILEPI Policy Director Frank Manzo IV. “This report shows that unionized hospitals in Illinois were far better prepared to absorb the impacts of COVID-19. Our findings have important implications for the future of hospital staffing and how we manage public health crises.”

Specifically, the report reveals significant differences between the state’s unionized and non-unionized hospitals in the wake of COVID-19, including:

    • Union hospitals have nurse turnover rates that are up to 14% lower.
    • Unionized hospitals have nurse vacancy rates that are up to 45% lower.
    • Unionized hospitals report 15% fewer OSHA violations and 29% fewer serious violations.
    • Unionized hospitals employ more infection prevention and control staff—particularly in Cook County which has seen two-thirds of the state’s COVID-19 caseload.
    • Nurses at unionized hospitals are able to devote 1 to 4 more hours of care to each patient, on average.

Despite their weaker staffing and care outcomes, the report notes that the state’s non-unionized hospitals have received 16% more funding per bed than unionized facilities from federal pandemic relief measures such as the CARES Act. All told, Illinois’ hospitals have received at least $1.1 billion, and small Illinois hospitals with under 100 beds have received more than four times the per-bed funding than their larger unionized counterparts.

Prior ILEPI research had documented that Illinois’ hospitals faced a shortage of 20,000 registered nurses before the COVID-19 pandemic, with half of its nursing workforce over the age of 55 and more than three-quarters of the state’s nurses warning of insufficient staffing levels. A proposed “safe patient limits” nurse staffing law– which would have required Illinois’ hospitals to hire more nurses and has been linked to better patient outcomes, including lower fatality and readmission rates for certain respiratory conditions and improved nurse retention, at minimal impact on the financial performance of hospitals– has been pending in the Illinois General Assembly for nearly two years.

The full report is here.

* Capitol News Illinois

But while the Illinois Health and Hospital Association agrees there is a nursing shortage, it argues the lack of preparedness was more of a federal problem, and that the nursing shortage did not diminish the quality of care patients received. It strongly opposes legislation requiring minimum nurse staffing levels at hospitals, and disputes any correlation between the quality of patient care and the presence of a nurses’ union in a hospital. […]

“First of all, we’ve been drilling and doing exercises on pandemics before the pandemic hit,” [Danny Chun, spokesman for the Illinois Health and Hospital Association] said during an interview. “Every hospital in the state, as you know, has an emergency preparedness plan for disasters of all kinds – mass shootings, traffic accidents, biochemical, biohazard, flu epidemics or pandemics. In the city of Chicago last year in the summer of 2019, Chicago hospitals did an exercise, a drill with the Chicago Department of Public Health on this exact issue – pandemics. And we were directly involved in a lot of the planning and discussions back in January, February, March where hospitals got ready for the pandemic.”

Chun said hospitals were directly involved in discussions with Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration in the early stages of the pandemic to plan mitigation efforts, including the decision to cancel or postpone nonemergency surgeries and procedures in order to free up hospital resources for COVID-19 patients.

“Look at the numbers. We flattened the curve,” Chun said, referring to hospitalization data from the Illinois Department of Public Health, which have shown a consistent downward trend since May in hospitalizations, intensive care admissions and ventilator usage by COVID-19 patients.

       

3 Comments
  1. - R A T - Tuesday, Jun 30, 20 @ 11:08 am:

    There are just too many factors involved to believe the simplicity of the conclusions of this simplified study. But they have their opinion and I have mine, so I could easily be wrong. In truth, I have been involved in the two hospitals in Springfield and the two in Peoria and I have no idea I’d any or all are union (nor much care).


  2. - pool boy - Tuesday, Jun 30, 20 @ 12:09 pm:

    Pretty sure nurses at Memorial are not union and they seemed to do O.K. with the COVID. They did however, furlough a lot of staff until November?


  3. - City Zen - Tuesday, Jun 30, 20 @ 1:06 pm:

    Only 14 union hospitals in the state and the study couldn’t be bothered with listing them by name?


Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.


* Buried nugget and magic beans
* Open thread
* SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Supplement to today’s edition and some campaign stuff
* SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Today's edition of Capitol Fax (use all CAPS in password)
* Live coverage
* Selected press releases (Live updates)
* Yesterday's stories

Support CapitolFax.com
Visit our advertisers...

...............

...............

...............

...............

...............

...............


Loading


Main Menu
Home
Illinois
YouTube
Pundit rankings
Obama
Subscriber Content
Durbin
Burris
Blagojevich Trial
Advertising
Updated Posts
Polls

Archives
October 2024
September 2024
August 2024
July 2024
June 2024
May 2024
April 2024
March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004

Blog*Spot Archives
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005

Syndication

RSS Feed 2.0
Comments RSS 2.0




Hosted by MCS SUBSCRIBE to Capitol Fax Advertise Here Mobile Version Contact Rich Miller