Whether New Jersey hospitals should be required to have more nurses — and whether this would lead to improved safety or less flexibility for hospital managers — is at the center of a policy debate brewing in Trenton.

A coalition of labor unions is pushing the state to revise its minimum nurse-staffing rules for the first time since 1987, and to add teeth to the mandates by including penalties for hospitals that don’t follow the rules. They point to studies finding a link between improved patient safety and lower patient-nurse ratios.

But hospital representatives and nursing managers question these studies and instead argue that patient safety could be harmed by reducing hospitals’ flexibility to adjust nurse staffing levels to meet patient needs.

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