Ratios--if it were only that easy.

Health care staffing is a complicated arena, and nurses are in the best position to assure a good match between the problems being addressed and the solutions being adopted. Why would nurses want to hand over their power to make staffing decisions to the government? Perhaps what got us into the situation of asking government to intervene in the world of health care staffing is the inability of management and staff to work together effectively to design the most effective approach to staffing. The business side and the quality/safety side of health care must work in harmony. Collaboration between nursing and finance is perhaps the most important formula for success. The challenges before us in health care staffing are big, but they will never be solved by the application of symptom-level solutions.