An Ohio bill that would require hospitals to staff a circulating nurse in every operating room hosting a surgical procedure has drawn opposing reactions from the state’s largest nursing and hospital groups.
House Bill 149 would order hospitals to ensure that a circulating nurse is assigned to an operating room for the entire duration of a surgical procedure and would prohibit the nurse from being assigned to monitor concurrent procedures. The legislative proposal would also apply to walk-in surgical centers.
The legislation defines a circulating nurse as a registered nurse who is experienced in perioperative nursing and responsible for coordinating the nursing care and safety needs of a patient.
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The legislation is similar to another bill that was introduced last session, but never made it to a vote.
The Ohio Hospital Association (OHA) opposes the measure and generally is against any legislative proposal that imposes staffing requirements. The organization maintains that mandated staffing levels haven’t been proven to enhance patient safety.
“Rigid staffing mandates such as [this bill] unnecessarily tie the hands of hospitals and caregivers and do not serve the needs of patients,” an OHA representative said in testimony at a committee hearing for the bill last legislative session.
The OHA representative said the organization was unaware of any hospitals in the state that don’t use circulating nurses in operating rooms, but didn’t say that circulating nurses are present for all procedures, as the bill would require.
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Lisa Rankin, deputy executive director of the Ohio Nurses Association (ONA), said her organization hasn’t taken a stance on HB 149, but it supported the legislation last time. “I don’t see a problem that we’ll support this, but we haven’t yet taken a formal position,” she said.
For ONA, the circulating nurse requirement is also one of patient safety. The group says the law would, in fact, make patients safer.
“We view it as a patient-safety measure to ensure there’s a patient advocate in the room monitoring nursing care and the procedure,” Rankin said.
In supporting a circulating nurse requirement, ONA has a friend in the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN). The group in January named the circulating nurse issue its (pdf) top legislative priority for 2011 and picked Ohio as one of seven “targeted” states for its advocacy of the issue.
AORN said that 23 states require that a perioperative registered nurse be present in each operating room throughout each surgical or invasive procedure.
The Ohio bill’s primary sponsor is Rep. Tom Letson, D-Warren.
