Pittsburgh nurses are fighting for higher employment rates – and the research proves it

As nursing contract negotiations heated up in January 2026 at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital in Pittsburgh and at UPMC Altoonathe talk has moved from disputes over standard wages to a more fundamental issue of patient safety: the nurse-to-patient ratio.

The New York State Nurses Association this approach has turn out to be the master plan for nurses’ work strategies across the country. By recognizing staffing relations as a non-negotiable safety standard, NYSNA shifted the main focus of contract negotiations from easy pay increases to enforceable clinical mandates. In January, the brand new union held its first meeting with UPMC management to barter a contract. At the time of this text’s publication, NYSNA and NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia Hospital had reached a tentative agreement, although the terms of the agreement had not been made public.

Fall 2025, 900 nurses at UPMC’s major hospitals in Pittsburgh voted for representation by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)..

Anna Mayo, assistant professor of organizational behavior at Carnegie Mellon University, explains the workload and staffing issues nurses face each in Pittsburgh hospitals and across the country.

One of the foremost concerns concerns nursing staff, especially nursing staff nurse-patient attitude. Other issues include wages, health advantages, parental and sick leave, working hours and measures to mitigate workplace violence. Magee is certainly one of the biggest birthing and neonatal centers in Pittsburgh, and nurses there say they’re coping with what they call a “dangerous patient load.”

Magee nurses held a press conference in January 2026, advocating for more time spent with patients by establishing a minimum nurse-to-patient ratio. The foremost issue nurses want to handle of their first collective bargaining agreement is limiting the variety of patients a nurse can assign to a shift. If Magee were to follow the recommendations industry standards set by the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nursesthis may mean there could be one nurse for each patient in energetic labor.

The short answer is yes. There is general agreement that having a “safe” level of nursing staffing is expounded higher patient outcomesbut what exactly does protected staff mean? is less clear.

These metrics typically take into consideration a nurse’s workload based on each patient volume and patient condition – a measure of how much time a nurse must spend with a patient. Important patient aspects include the severity of the case and the necessity for medications or other interventions, the patient’s mobility, and the status of a brand new admission or near discharge. Factors resembling the nurse’s experience level and floor layout may be considered when assessing acuity. For example, patients who’re farther apart may have more time to be monitored by one nurse.

Even with advances in the usage of artificial intelligence and electronic health record data to generate real-time acuity predictions, current modeling is imperfect.

2025 study shows that how busy a nurse feels is commonly more necessary than the variety of patients she sees or current estimates of the quantity of care those patients require. Even if the official numbers look OK, a nurse’s personal experience with workload is a greater predictor of whether she’s going to miss a care task. Because there shouldn’t be yet a transparent and agreed approach to measure this phenomenon, nurses and hospital leaders – who view the difficulty from their very own separate perspectives – often disagree on what a protected workforce actually looks like, which may result in conflict.

As someone who coordinates healthcare teams, I see a missing piece within the nursing workforce conversation: the remaining of the team. This may include other healthcare providers, therapists, dietitians, social staff and diagnostic staff.

In fact, there could also be two nurses working on the identical unit with the identical variety of patients who appear to wish the identical care. However, one could also be overwhelmed while the opposite performs well, at the least partly resulting from the structure and collaboration of the broader patient care teams.

Evidence on staffing shortages and the usage of locum staff largely focuses on patient outcomes and is mixed. One 2022 meta-analysis found no difference in patient outcomes during or outside health care employee strikes. However, research study using data from New York City specializing in nurse strikes clearly suggests an increased risk of each mortality and readmission.

However, research on healthcare teams suggests that there may be also a risk of breakdown in teamwork. Having substitute staff during a strike routinely creates patient care teams where team members haven’t previously worked together. This lack of shared experiences can negatively impact teamwork.

Negotiation research suggests that the important thing to conflict management is knowing the opposite party’s fundamental interests. Nurses are clearly burnt out and this must be taken seriously. However, considering the larger picture – staffing decisions on the team level – could reduce nurses’ stress.

For example, way of grouping care teams can have serious implications also. The nurse’s experience will rely on how difficult and time-consuming it can be to coordinate and look after each patient. If a nurse has three patients and three different care teams quite than the identical care team for all patients, coordination costs are more burdensome.

There is a few evidence of the advantages of teamwork in primary health care AND emergency departments. This can alleviate the drastic difference in nurse workload when comparing one patient’s workload to 2, three, etc. Additionally, my research suggests low-cost interventions that increase effectiveness nurse involvement it may possibly improve team coordination and patient outcomes and due to this fact may be a useful lever in influencing perceived nurse workload.

Looking at how patient care teams work together – quite than focusing solely on nurses – can discover recent ways to assist patients and staff. Solving these problems could, above all, reduce the necessity for strikes and protests and help hospital directors higher support their employees, patients and the whole organization.