Contact Your Legislator in Support of Ensuring Safe Staffing and Promoting Workplace Safety!

The shortage of available healthcare professionals coupled with growing demand makes the importance of safe staffing even more critical. Nurses and other healthcare professionals are working longer hours and being assigned too many patients. To protect the resilience of the workforce and maintain the highest quality care for patients, Virginia’s nurses must be empowered and involved in creating appropriate staffing plans.

Additionally, policies must be enacted to better ensure healthcare professionals’ safety at work. Healthcare professionals continue to face an elevated risk of workplace violence from patients and other individuals; as much as five times higher in hospitals than the national average. Policymakers should ensure reporting of workplace violence incidents and make it easier to restrict threatening individuals’ access to facilities. Other workplace hazards need to be addressed to protect our workforce, enable healthcare professionals to provide optimal care, and to ensure patient outcomes are not jeopardized.