NYSNA Nurses Receive Bombshell Albany Med Staffing Deficiency Report
For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025
Contact: Andrea Penman-Lomeli | press@nysna.org | 347-559-3169
Kristi Barnes | press@nysna.org | 646-853-4489
NYSNA Nurses Receive Bombshell Albany Med Staffing Deficiency Report
Official DOH report Albany Med administrators tried to bury shows shocking 500+ violations, including scores of procedural violations.
Report shows Albany Med administrators disagreed, deflected and ignored official DOH investigation findings for nearly six months.
Hospital’s corrective action plans took months and multiple attempts without nurse input to complete—and some plans still violate NY’s Safe Staffing law.
Albany, N.Y. – In late Aug. 2024, the New York State Department of Health (DOH) issued a staffing deficiency report to Albany Medical Center citing at least 480 staffing violations of the state’s safe staffing law, more than any other hospital to date. Instead of working with frontline nurses on the hospital’s clinical staffing committee to create corrective action plans to address the staffing crisis, hospital administrators refused to share the report, acknowledge the problem, or involve nurses in efforts to improve staffing- all of which they are required to do by law.
Though Albany Med tried to hide the deficiency report, frontline nurses finally received a copy of the report months after filing a Freedom of Information Law request to obtain it from the DOH. In dozens of pages, the document not only details even more staffing violations than previously reported, but reveals Albany Med administrators' repeated failure to adequately address the staffing violations. The DOH worked with hospital administrators for nearly six months to address deficiencies. The hospital submitted updated corrective plans as recently as Feb. 2, 2025, but those plans still do not adequately address staffing deficiencies or follow the law. Further, many of the corrective action plans they’ve submitted to the DOH directly contradict their written staffing proposals for the new NYSNA contract.
In August, CEO McKenna publicly downplayed the verified 480 staffing violations and made no mention of the additional 24 procedural violations of the law. The report details the 480 violations of safe staffing standards. These occurred during several months across 26 different units, including 32 separate violations in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
Behind the scenes, hospital administrators scrambled to minimize the damage. They quarreled with official findings and crafted subpar corrective action plans. Twice, the DOH rejected their plans-- most recently on Dec. 23, 2024. In one example, the hospital’s proposed plans tried to blame the Epic patient charting software and the DOH website for not accurately tracking patient acuity and staffing levels. Additionally, the new tool they created as part of their October corrective action plan to improve tracking the acuity of babies in the NICU can put the hospital in violation of New York’s Safe Staffing mandate of a maximum of 2 ICU-level patients per nurse. When cited for failure to account for nurse experience and certification when planning to staff an ICU where nurses care for the sickest cardio-thoracic patients, the hospital said they could not substantiate the problem and refused to create an action plan.
Albany Med’s main “solutions” to the staffing crisis are relying on expensive temporary travel nurses and reducing patient beds. They note that neither are ideal solutions for delivering quality patient care. In their discussion of their in-house staffing agency, the Albany Med Health System Staffing Alliance, they admit that relying on the staffing agency is a “stop-gap effort” that is “suboptimal to patient care, detrimental to overall workforce morale and ultimately unsustainable over the long term.”
The Albany Med Health System Staffing Alliance is owned by Albany Med. While Albany Med allows this staffing crisis to persist, that Alliance profits. Meanwhile, Albany Med continues to unlawfully withhold information about its use of travel nurses. According to their latest tax filing, the Alliance had $19 million in income in 2023, and their end of year assets increased by $2.1 million from the previous year. Albany Med Health System spent nearly $80 million on a single staffing agency in 2023. Albany Medical Center alone contracts with several nurse staffing agencies.
NYSNA bargaining committee member and staffing committee member Jaimie Alaxanian, RN, said: “Closing beds down because we are understaffed is not an acceptable solution for nurses or the patients who need care. Albany Med managers repeatedly told us we did not have a staffing issue, but we learned from their corrective action plan that they have been closing beds all along as a ‘solution’ to understaffing. Management needs to focus on negotiating a fair contract that will help recruit and retain nurses for the long term."
NYSNA nurses are continuing to pore over the extensive report, looking for evidence that Albany Med has implemented the corrective action plans they cited in the DOH report. At the bargaining table yesterday, Albany Med still refused to answer questions about the report or share their rationale for corrective actions in the report with frontline nurses.
“It’s clear from our bargaining session yesterday that Albany Med’s leadership is still trying to shut nurses out of the staffing committee process and refuses to work collaboratively to address the staffing crisis at the hospital,” said local NYSNA leader Jennifer Bejo, RN. “The persistent lack of leadership and the blatant disregard for patient safety and New York’s laws is so distressing. Regardless, nurses will continue to push ahead and advocate for our patients and for a fair contract that helps us deliver the quality care our community deserves."
Despite the fact that McKenna reassured the public that the hospital was following the DOH process, the DOH "determined that the plan [was] not responsive to the law.”
NYSNA President Nancy Hagans, RN, BSN, CCRN, said: “Albany Med executives can no longer deny the staffing crisis they have created and must work immediately to fix it. Albany Med nurses have been speaking out for more than a year to demand hospital executives do more to protect safe patient care. We look forward to negotiating a strong contract that respects nurses and patients. We also look forward to the hospital being held accountable for safe staffing and following New York’s safe staffing laws.”
NYSNA nurses at Albany Med continue to fight for a fair union contract with a comprehensive plan to recruit, retain, and respect nurses to solve the nurse staffing crisis at the hospital and ensure quality care for the community.
Over the last year, NYSNA nurses at Albany Medical Center have held townhalls and an informational picket, hosted community forums, delivered petitions to hospital leadership, and held speak-outs for safe staffing. Unions and community groups recently penned a letter of solidarity calling on Albany Med to listen to its nurses. Nurses also launched an ad campaign across the capital region to draw attention to the staffing crisis at Albany Med. Visit albanymedqualitycare.org to find out more.
Background
[1] Procedural violations of the staffing law cited in the DOH staffing deficiency report included: 1) Failure to comply with the staffing committee selection process; 2) Failure to provide release time for committee members; 3) Failure to take acuity into account in staffing plans, particularly in the neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU); 4) Failure to take experience and certification into account in staffing plans, especially in the NICU and other ICU units caring for the sickest patients; 5) Failure to consider the architecture and geography of the NICU patient care unit in staffing plans; 6) Failure to provide meal and rest break coverage to maintain safe staffing levels; 7) Failure to implement a process for reviewing and responding to complaints in the staffing committee; 8) Failure to allow collective bargaining representatives to report staffing violations; 9) Failure to implement a process to examine, respond to, or track data of any variations from staffing plan; and 10) Failure to publicly post staffing plans and/or actual daily staffing.
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The New York State Nurses Association represents more than 42,000 members in New York State. We are New York’s largest union and professional association for registered nurses. NYSNA is an affiliate of National Nurses United, AFL-CIO, the country's largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses, with more than 225,000 members nationwide.