New York Law Blog

An article run today on Nurse.com speaks of the new New York state law prohibiting hospitals from enforcing mandatory overtime of nurses. Starting July 1, 2009, nurses now have the right to say no to forced overtime and be protected from doing so by law. However there are a few exceptions to the law:

A nurse may be required to work overtime in the case of a healthcare disaster (such as a natural catastrophe), government-declared state of emergency, or if he or she is in the middle of an ongoing medical or surgical procedure. "[These are] all prudent measures because they are in the interest of patient safety," says [co-chairwoman of the Public Policy Committee Pat] Hogan. The final exception is an "emergency" situation — as determined by the employer. What may be considered an "emergency" is well-defined. It must be unanticipated and cannot occur on a regular basis. The statute specifically requires a good-faith effort first to have the shift covered by a per diem, agency nurse, or assigned float, or by requesting that an off-duty employee work an additional day, before requiring the nurse on duty to remain.

The new law aims to restore balance to a field that is shrinking in numbers while the need expands. Forcing nurses to work overtime leads to mistakes, medical malpractice, etc. Now nurses have a safeguard against being forced to put in too many hours, and allowing them to lead a better quality of life.

[T]he new law has been applauded as a positive step for patients and nurses. In addition to promoting patient safety, it protects nurses. Because it is part of NYS’s labor laws, the new law will come under Section 213, which provides prosecution for those who violate it. "Nobody should have to fear saying no to last-minute mandatory overtime and choose between the job and getting his or her child off the bus," says Hogan. "If this is going to fix those issues, then it’s a good thing and the time and effort to accomplish it well spent."

-Two men who were helping dismantle a tower crane have been charged with four violations of city construction codes stemming from the death of a worker after her fell over 40 stories to his death. The men have been accused of illegally cutting the safety guardrail on a platform that the worker fell from.

“Despite months and months of public pleas for construction safety, our investigators found glaring violations at a high-rise work site where a construction worker fell to his death,” Rose Gill Hearn, the Department of Investigation commissioner, said.

Robert LiMandri, the buildings commissioner-designate, said that the removal of the safety railing played a critical role in causing the accident, noting, “It was a shortcut gone terribly wrong that compromised rigging operations and put the lives of fellow workers in jeopardy.”

-A proposed federal bill aims to tighten security on electronic health records as well as giving financial incentives for doctors who use the system.

The bill would require notification when personal health information is breached and extend federal privacy laws to organizations that conduct business with providers. It would also require providers to receive patient consent to use or disclose protected information, according to a committee news release.

An amendment to the bill would require health information exchanges and other entities to comply with security rules included in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996, in addition to the privacy rules included in the legislation, according to a summary of revisions to the bill.

-New findings show that over 90 percent of Long Island Rail Road workers have been allowed to collect disability as well as their pension plans after retirement. Federal officers have seized documents from the Long Island office of the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board and are now investigating the situation and law loopholes.

New York is now in line with 48 other states which allow pharmacists to administer influenza and pneumococcal immunizations after Governor David Patterson signed a bill into law allowing them to do so. With pharmacies so accessible to the population, the ability for those even without medical insurance (and even those who do have it but just want to take advantage of the convenience of a pharmacy) to be able to receive simple immunizations to keep them healthy through the winter months when the flu and pneumonia run rampant could go a long way to keeping the majority of communities healthy. The American Lung Association of New York put out a press release lauding the signing of the bill by Governor Patterson, which was sponsored by Senator Charles J. Fuschillo and Assemblywoman Amy Paulin.

Allowing pharmacists to immunize is quickly becoming the standard of care in this country.   New York now joins the other forty eight states nationwide that allow pharmacists to administer vaccinations.  
 
Across the nation, states that allow pharmacists to vaccinate have witnessed higher influenza vaccination rates. In fact, 18- to 64-year-olds are 27 percent more likely to be vaccinated, and those over 65 are 22 percent more likely to be vaccinated. Moreover, influenza vaccination rates among those over age 65 grew at triple the rate in states that allow pharmacists to provide vaccinations (10.7 percent increase) compared with states that did not (3.5 percent increase).

In New York and throughout the U.S., virtually all vaccine-preventable deaths occur in adults. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 36,000 people in the United States die annually from influenza and an additional 200,000 are hospitalized every year. Most of those deaths occur among people age 65 and older. People over 65 who are immunized against flu experience 20 percent fewer cardiac- and stroke-related hospitalizations, 30 percent fewer hospitalizations for pneumonia or other influenza complications, and 50 percent lower risk of death from all causes during flu season. Thus, the majority of these deaths are preventable and unnecessary.