A social media influencer is galvanizing nurses across the country to petition an Illinois-based organization for safer staffing at hospitals and other health care settings — a campaign that, this week, has included a rally, commercials on local TV and a mobile billboard traveling to Chicago-area hospitals.
Florida nurse Blake Lynch, better known as “Nurse Blake” on social media, has been working with Change.org and a Virginia- and New York City-based advocacy group called Impact in Healthcare, on the effort to ask the Joint Commission to require “safe staffing ratios” as a condition of accreditation. The nonprofit Joint Commission accredits and certifies health care organizations across the country if they meet an array of requirements.
Lynch, who is known for posting funny videos about nursing on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, started a petition on Change.org about the issue that, so far, has more than 540,000 signatures, making it the largest health care petition on the platform this year, said Michael Jones, a managing director at Change.org.
