Bend, Ore.-based St. Charles Health System submitted a correction plan to the state this week regarding staffing violations found by the Oregon Health Authority, a system official told Becker's via email.
Pam Steinke, RN, MSN, senior vice president of quality and chief nurse executive for St. Charles, said the OHA conducted its audit this summer to assess implementation of new administrative rules for the state nurse staffing law that took effect at the beginning of 2017. The audit resulted in 101 findings.
The OHA report, obtained by KTVZ, found some personnel records lacked documentation of training or current certification. Additionally, Ms. Steinke said "meeting minutes not including people's titles" and "no log for mandatory overtime because we have never mandated overtime" were among the other findings.
The Oregon Nurses Association, which represents St. Charles nurses and filed the staffing complaint that led to OHA's investigation, said while all of those findings were part of the report, "the central question in the complaint was around misuse of the buddy system." The union describes this system as one that makes nurses care for double the amount of patients at one time as allowed by the hospital's staffing plan. The report found St. Charles "failed to implement a hospitalwide nurse staffing plan that was developed to consider for each unit meal breaks, rest breaks and other tasks not related to direct patient care and that nursing staff members received breaks as required. The nurse staffing plan did not provide for additional nursing staff members to maintain the staffing ratios required in the nurse staffing plan during these tasks, creating the possibility that the units did not meet minimum staffing required for the duration of tasks not related to direct patient care.”
Ms. Steinke contends the report did not cite any deficiencies "that pointed to an unsafe situation for patients," and that OHA's findings were "very similar to other hospitals and are mostly related to documentation and record keeping, meeting minutes and other clerical rules."
She said the system has been working to resolve the report findings related to documentation that nurses have finished required certifications for continuing education. She added St. Charles also has a plan "to address a long-standing problem related to rest and meal breaks that is working."
OHA spokesperson Jonathan Modie told Becker's generally once a hospital submits a correction plan and that plan is approved, OHA will revisit the hospital within 60 days to check compliance.
Read the full OHA report here.