Oregon nurse staffing law: is it working?

In 2001, Oregon enacted a law mandating the creation of hospital nurse staffing committees to oversee staffing in acute care hospitals. The study design is a descriptive case study (qualitative method) using semistructured interviews and focus groups to assess the law requiring hospital nurse staffing committees to monitor nurse staffing in Oregon. One significant theme of the study was the wide variation among facilities in the way the staffing legislation is viewed, interpreted, understood, appreciated, and implemented. Another was that the chief nursing officer's view of the legislation tended to be the prevailing view expressed by the managers and staff nurses from those same organizations. A significant difference between a functional versus nonfunctional committee was whether the chief nurse viewed the legislation in a positive way and was using the legislation to enhance his/her work.