For the second time in less than three weeks, an independent arbitrator found NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn financially responsible for short-staffing its hospital units.

Arbitrator James A. Brown found the hospital violated contractual staffing ratios in two medical-surgical units on 20 separate shifts between November and December 2022, and violated contractual staffing for a critical care step-down unit on 12 separate shifts between March and May 2022.

In his December 18 opinion, Brown ruled that the nurses who worked these understaffed shifts were entitled to split the average shift wage of the missing nurses--roughly $750 to $800 per shift for each missing nurse.

The units covered in the decision were a stroke and neurological unit, with a contractual staffing ratio of one registered nurse to four patients; a medical-surgical unit, with an agreed upon staffing ratio of 1:5 ; and a critical care step-down unit with an agreed-upon staffing ration of 1:3.

"NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn has made a practice of short-staffing. This is the second decision in a row that seeks to remove the hospital's financial incentive to understaff," said Anne Goldman, head of the Federation of Nurses/UFT, which represents roughly 4,000 nurses in New York City including 1,000 nurses at NYU Langone Hospital- Brooklyn. The Federation also represents 16,000 nurses in New York State.

"Patient care is put at risk and nurses are put in impossible positions when hospitals understaff. Nurses leave the profession over chronic short staffing because they cannot give their patients the kind of care patients are entitled to. With these decisions, hospitals are being held accountable to staff correctly," Goldman said.

Brown's decision acknowledged there may be instances when the hospital did make a good-faith effort to correctly staff a shift but failed. He recommended a sliding scale of financial responsibility.

In the first "good-faith" failure to staff correctly, the hospital would be responsible for dividing one-quarter of the average wage of the missing nurses among those who worked.

On the second infraction, the hospital's financial responsibility jumps to half the average salary divided among those who worked; three-fourths of the salary on the third infraction, and 100 percent on the fourth infraction.

Brown's decision echoes a December 1 ruling by Arbitrator Howard Edelman who established a framework to hold NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn financially accountable for violating contractual staffing ratios with the Federation of Nurses/UFT at another of its medical-surgical units.