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Oregon’s hospital staffing law requires hospital management to abide by staffing plans produced jointly with workers. The law gets enforced when workers—say, a nurse or a respiratory therapist—tell the state that their employer didn’t make or follow the plan. Since fines went into effect last year, complaints have flooded in.
Nowhere has this occurred more than at Oregon Health & Science University, which, according to state data reviewed by WW, had as of late June racked up more than $1.5 million in fines tied to the law, with hundreds more enforcement notices pending. (A few other Portland-area hospitals, including Providence Portland Medical Center, have also seen significant fines, while others, including large ones like Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, have faced practically none at all.)
OHSU has formally contested some of the fines. A spokesperson notes the complexity of the staffing requirements, and says the institution is working “in earnest” to get staffing plans approved. Hospital leaders have complained that the Oregon Health Authority is enforcing the law unfairly—different than they envisioned it as members of the coalition that created the legislation.
The result “rewards gridlock, punishes hospitals that are meeting statutory staffing requirements, and diverts millions of dollars from patient care to OHA—driving further affordability challenges,” says a Providence Oregon spokesperson.
Union leaders find this rich. “If hospitals would follow the law and work with health care workers on staffing plans that meet the needs of patients and caregivers, they wouldn’t be required to pay fines, submit to investigations, and file paperwork,” spokeswoman Myrna Jensen of the Oregon Nurses Association tells WW.
A spokesperson for a major OHSU union, AFSCME, says that “a clear pattern has emerged: OHSU would rather pay fines than adhere to sufficient staffing committee staffing plans.”
