Gov. Bill Ritter took action Thursday to make patient safety a top priority.

As health-care workers cheered and hooted during a Capitol ceremony, Ritter signed the Health Care Worker Whistle-Blower Protection Bill and an executive order creating a task force to study nurse staffing levels.

After years of fierce battles between hospitals and nurses over staff-to-patient ratios, Ritter praised all sides for "sitting down and hammering out differences" to better serve patients.

"The common ground here: Providing the best possible health care and consumer information to the people of Colorado, while also protecting the interests of our health care workers and our hospitals," Ritter said.

It took five years to pass House Bill 1133. It provides whistle-blower protection to nurses and other health-care workers who until now could be legally fired for reporting patient-safety concerns, said Rep. Morgan Carroll, who sponsored the bill with fellow Aurora Democrat Sen. Bob Hagedorn.

Earlier efforts died in the legislature and one was vetoed last year by then-Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican.

Carroll called it "a momentous victory for all patients and all citizens, for health care quality and safety in Colorado." She said the law will cut down on some of the 98,000 preventable medical errors that annually occur in the U.S.

"Medical errors are at this point the eighth-leading cause of death in the United States," she said.

After a Senate bill mandating that hospitals develop nurse-to- patient ratios died this session, Ritter said his office and House Speaker Andrew Romanoff brought the Colorado Hospital Association and SEIU Nurse Alliance of Colorado together to agree on the 21-member Nurse Workforce and Patient Care Task Force.

It will try to find the best way to inform consumers about nurse staffing levels at Colorado hospitals and to review national studies and models for insights into optimal nurse-patient ratios.

Recommendations will be made to the governor and the legislature by year's end.

gathrighta@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5486