Give Patients the Right to See Hospital Staffing Information on Care Compare
The Issue
Most of us never expect to need a hospital until we do. When that day comes, patients and families deserve meaningful information before making one of the most important healthcare decisions of their lives.
Today, millions of Americans rely on CMS Care Compare to compare hospitals using publicly reported quality measures like infection rates, patient experience, readmissions, and mortality. These tools help patients make more informed decisions about where they receive care.
But one important piece of information is still missing.
Patients have no standardized way to determine whether a hospital is experiencing significant nursing vacancies, relying heavily on temporary or agency staff, or facing ongoing staffing challenges before they receive care.
As a registered nurse, legal nurse consultant, and healthcare educator, I have spent years helping patients understand how healthcare systems work and advocating for greater transparency in healthcare. Throughout my career, one principle has remained constant: patients can only make informed decisions when they have meaningful information.
This petition is not about telling hospitals how to manage their workforce or mandating nurse staffing ratios. It is about strengthening transparency for patients and families.
CMS has already established Care Compare as a trusted resource for comparing hospitals across dozens of important quality measures. CMS also requires staffing transparency for nursing homes, recognizing that staffing information is valuable to the public. Patients seeking care in acute care hospitals deserve the same commitment to transparency.
I am calling on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to expand Care Compare by adding standardized hospital staffing transparency for hospitals participating in Medicare, including:
• Average nurse staffing levels by major care area.
• Hospital nursing vacancy rates.
• The percentage of nursing care hours provided by temporary or agency staff.
• The date the staffing information was last updated.
Several states have already demonstrated that meaningful hospital staffing transparency is both possible and valuable. Patients across the country deserve consistent access to this information, regardless of where they live.
No single quality measure tells the whole story about a hospital. But staffing transparency is an important part of the picture, just like infection rates, patient experience, and readmission data already available through Care Compare.
Patients deserve access to meaningful information before they need care, not after.
If you believe patients and families should have access to more complete information when choosing where to receive care, please sign this petition and join me in asking CMS to expand Care Compare with standardized hospital staffing transparency.
This is a sponsored petition. Learn more here.
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The Issue
Most of us never expect to need a hospital until we do. When that day comes, patients and families deserve meaningful information before making one of the most important healthcare decisions of their lives.
Today, millions of Americans rely on CMS Care Compare to compare hospitals using publicly reported quality measures like infection rates, patient experience, readmissions, and mortality. These tools help patients make more informed decisions about where they receive care.
But one important piece of information is still missing.
Patients have no standardized way to determine whether a hospital is experiencing significant nursing vacancies, relying heavily on temporary or agency staff, or facing ongoing staffing challenges before they receive care.
As a registered nurse, legal nurse consultant, and healthcare educator, I have spent years helping patients understand how healthcare systems work and advocating for greater transparency in healthcare. Throughout my career, one principle has remained constant: patients can only make informed decisions when they have meaningful information.
This petition is not about telling hospitals how to manage their workforce or mandating nurse staffing ratios. It is about strengthening transparency for patients and families.
CMS has already established Care Compare as a trusted resource for comparing hospitals across dozens of important quality measures. CMS also requires staffing transparency for nursing homes, recognizing that staffing information is valuable to the public. Patients seeking care in acute care hospitals deserve the same commitment to transparency.
I am calling on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to expand Care Compare by adding standardized hospital staffing transparency for hospitals participating in Medicare, including:
• Average nurse staffing levels by major care area.
• Hospital nursing vacancy rates.
• The percentage of nursing care hours provided by temporary or agency staff.
• The date the staffing information was last updated.
Several states have already demonstrated that meaningful hospital staffing transparency is both possible and valuable. Patients across the country deserve consistent access to this information, regardless of where they live.
No single quality measure tells the whole story about a hospital. But staffing transparency is an important part of the picture, just like infection rates, patient experience, and readmission data already available through Care Compare.
Patients deserve access to meaningful information before they need care, not after.
If you believe patients and families should have access to more complete information when choosing where to receive care, please sign this petition and join me in asking CMS to expand Care Compare with standardized hospital staffing transparency.
This is a sponsored petition. Learn more here.
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Petition created on June 26, 2026