New Jersey's acting Gov. Richard Codey has signed a groundbreaking law that requires New Jersey hospitals to make daily public disclosures of the ratio of patients to nurses and other healthcare workers who provide direct patient care.

“Consumers will now have the information they need to select the best staffed—and therefore the safest—hospital,” says Ann Twomey, president of Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE), AFT Healthcare’s New Jersey affiliate and the moving force behind the state bill.

Illinois is the only other state with a staffing level disclosure law, which requires hospitals to provide staffing levels upon request (not public postings) and to compile information for quarterly and annual reports, including patient outcomes, nursing hours per patient day and nurse turnover rates.

“The disclosure law is a major step forward in our ultimate goal of national staffing ratios,” says Candice Owley, chair of AFT Healthcare. “When nurses and other healthcare workers have a dangerously high number of patients in their care, patients suffer.”

Under federal law, nursing homes already are required to disclose staffing levels. The New Jersey law requires every hospital to post in patient care units daily the number of registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, certified nurse aides and other licensed professionals providing direct care, and the ratio of these healthcare workers to patients.

“Our healthcare system is shrouded in secrecy, keeping information confidential about costs, charges and care that rightfully belongs to taxpayers, patients and the public at large. This legislation is a giant step forward in bringing our system into the light—and we thank the governor and the sponsors,” says Twomey. “As nurses and health professionals, we will use this information to ask the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services to examine more closely the links between unsafe nurse-to-patient ratios and medical errors and unsafe care—and to take action to make sure that all of our hospitals and nursing homes are safe for all of our patients, all of the time.”