/ en Mon, 28 Apr 2025 03:05:57 -0500 Fri, 22 Jul 22 06:00:00 -0500 /advancing-health-podcast/2022-07-22-nurses-journey-ukraine-us-ochsner-health <p>Before long, some Ukrainian nurses who are fleeing the war in their country will be taking a journey of some six thousand miles, to call Louisiana their new home. The nurses’ journey to relocate to a safer place comes courtesy of Ochsner Health in New Orleans, which has partnered with several organizations to make it happen. Global Nurse Partners, which brings internationally experienced nurses and U.S. healthcare facilities together for permanent positions, is among the groups Ochsner has worked with, along with CGFNS International, the ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ Association and the American Organization for Nursing Leadership. Together, these groups are providing two very valuable services. The Ukrainian care providers are receiving refuge and protection from an escalating conflict and communities around New Orleans and across Louisiana are getting trained nurses at a time when the U.S. does not have enough nurses to meet demand. Warner Thomas, president and CEO of Ochsner Health, sat down recently with Robyn Begley, CEO of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership and Chief Nursing Officer and Senior Vice President of workforce for the ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ Association, to discuss this relocation initiative and what the future may hold. This podcast was recorded in mid-July at the ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ Association’s annual Leadership Summit in San Diego.</p> <hr /> <p></p> <div><a href="https://soundcloud.com/advancinghealth" target="_blank" title="Advancing Health">Advancing Health</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/advancinghealth/nurses-journey-from-ukraine-to-us-with-ochsner-health" target="_blank" title="[Special Edition] Nurses’ Journey from Ukraine to U.S. with Ochsner Health">[Special Edition] Nurses’ Journey from Ukraine to U.S. with Ochsner Health</a></div> <p><a href="https://soundcloud.com/advancinghealth/nurses-journey-from-ukraine-to-us-with-ochsner-health/s-CPwyRkRjKF1">Listen to the podcast on SoundCloud.</a></p> Fri, 22 Jul 2022 06:00:00 -0500 International Staff /aha-center-health-innovation-market-scan/2022-02-15-5-ways-ease-staffing-shortages-now-and-future <div class="container"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-md-8"> <p><img alt="5 Ways to Ease Staffing Shortages Now and into the Future. A four-by-seven grid of clinician icons with eight icons emptying, representing missing or unfilled staff positions." data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="95a70409-1aac-475c-a5eb-0399ef6ce2ea" src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/AHA-MS-5-ways-to-ease-staffing-shortages-now-and-into-the-future.jpg" width="620" height="381"></p> <p>For the first time in nearly two decades, staffing shortages replaced financial challenges as the top concern among CEOs in the American College of Healthcare Executives’ annual survey. In December, a Moody’s Investors Service report forecast that staffing shortages and labor costs will bring higher expenses and an ensuing decline in operating cash flow for nonprofit hospitals and public health care.</p> <p>Many believe today’s staffing shortages, particularly in nursing, are more pronounced than in the past and will persist beyond 2022. But there are steps that can be taken now to ease future workforce pressures.</p> <h2>1 <span>|</span> <span>Customize Retention Strategies</span></h2> <p>Listening to what clinicians want and need and tailoring solutions appropriately can help boost retention, notes the <a href="/system/files/media/file/2021/10/AHA-Health-Care-Talent-Scan-2022.pdf" target="_blank">AHA’s 2022 Talent Scan report</a>. For example, while all nurses seek commensurate recognition and compensation for expertise and effort, some may put a premium on flexible scheduling and breaks to recharge, strong management support, open lines of communication, input into decision-making, accessibility to mental health and well-being resources to cope with job-related stress, or help with child or eldercare.</p> <p>A 2020 survey of physicians indicates that increased pay, additional time off, reduced on-call and paid sabbaticals are key retention factors, according to <a href="https://physiciansfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2020-Survey-of-Americas-Physicians_Exec-Summary.pdf" target="_blank" title="The Physicians Foundation 2020 Survey of America’s Physicians: COVID-19 Impact Edition">The Physicians Foundation</a>. Other factors that can boost satisfaction include increased autonomy, more face time with key leaders and more formal recognition for job performance.</p> <h2>2 <span>|</span> <span>Consider Leaning More on Advanced Practice Nurses</span></h2> <p>Licensed nurse practitioners (NPs) have taken on greater responsibility during the pandemic when many state executive orders granted them larger roles, given the pressing need for primary care professionals. Their role will continue to grow along with value-based care models, notes a <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/nursing-in-2021-retaining-the-healthcare-workforce-when-we-need-it-most" target="_blank" title="McKinsey & Company. Nursing in 2021: Retaining the healthcare workforce when we need it most.">McKinsey & Company report</a>. Their ranks also are expanding, increasing 12% in the last year to a record 325,000-plus. Nationwide, more effective use of NPs and physician assistants could help alleviate the primary care physician shortage.</p> <h2>3 <span>|</span> <span>Strive to Become a Millennial/Gen Z Destination</span></h2> <p>As workforce shortages continue, new clinicians can be more selective about where they work and for what kind of organization. Offer staff the ability to tailor their schedules to allow time for innovation. Meanwhile, creating a career lattice allows you to keep and grow entry-level workers who are interested in health care but who may not realize they can grow where they are. Sharing your mission, values and diversity, equity and inclusion goals can be critical to Gen Z employees who often value cultural fit over traditional benefits.</p> <h2>4 <span>|</span> <span>Integrate Workforce Planning with Strategic Planning</span></h2> <p>As the health care landscape is transformed by such key forces as the societal factors that influence health, emerging technologies and consumerism, deepen your understanding of the impact on the workforce and the nature of the jobs clinicians perform. Create an environment that supports the team through change. As skill sets and capabilities shift, develop strategies to reskill the existing workforce and strengthen the talent pipeline with new professional development pathways and partnerships.</p> <h2>5 <span>|</span> <span>Create your own solutions</span></h2> <p>Some hospitals and health systems are building their own internal supply of clinicians who can be reassigned temporarily during peak need periods. CommonSpirit Health recognized the need to create its own internal nurse-staffing agency before the pandemic, but COVID-19 accelerated the need to build it. Having an internal staffing agency gives nurses the flexibility to travel when it works for their lives and gives them more flexibility while remaining in the organization and keeping their seniority, Kathleen Sanford, executive vice president and chief nursing executive at CommonSpirit recently told <a href="https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/nursing/top-3-ways-commonspirit-health-plans-confront-nursing-shortage" target="_blank" title="HealthLeaders: Top 3 Ways CommonSpirit Health Plans to Confron the Nursing Shortage.">HealthLeaders</a>.</p> <div> <h2>5 Focus Areas for Future Preparedness</h2> <ol> <li><span><strong>Team Satisfaction:</strong></span> Are you reimagining delivery models to boost team satisfaction, such as expanding use of telemedicine platforms that allow nurses to work remotely more often?</li> <li><span><strong>Engagement:</strong></span> Do you foster engagement and retention by regularly soliciting and acting on staff input through structurally embedded opportunities like shared councils and committees?</li> <li><span><strong>Eliminating Gaps:</strong></span> What gaps do you need to address so that you can quickly and efficiently ramp up, deploy and support staff during the next emergency or pandemic?</li> <li><span><strong>Next Up?:</strong></span> Have you reviewed and updated your succession-planning strategies for clinicians?</li> <li><span><strong>Clinical Workflow:</strong></span> What technologies are you exploring to help you optimize clinical workflow and ensure patient access to health care when clinician numbers are limited?</li> </ol> </div> </div> <div class="col-md-4"> <p><strong><strong><a href="/center" title="Visit the AHA Center for Health Innovation landing page."><img alt="AHA Center for Health Innovation logo" data-entity- data-entity-uuid="7ade6b12-de98-4d0b-965f-a7c99d9463c5" src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/logo-aha-innovation-center-color-sm.jpg" type="file" class="align-center"></a></strong></strong></p> <strong><strong><a href="/center/form/innovation-subscription"><img alt data-entity-type data-entity-uuid src="/sites/default/files/2019-04/Market_Scan_Call_Out_360x300.png"></a></strong></strong></div> </div> </div> <p><strong><strong> .field_featured_image { position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } .featured-image{ position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } </strong></strong></p> Tue, 15 Feb 2022 06:15:00 -0600 International Staff /lettercomment/2022-01-27-hospital-workforce-shortage-crisis-demands-immediate-action <div class="container"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-md-8"> <p>For two long years, the dedicated women and men of America’s hospitals and health systems have experienced firsthand the overwhelming impact of COVID-19.</p> <p>The pandemic has been frustrating, exhausting, and heartbreaking, and few have felt these emotions stronger and longer than those on the front lines of delivering care.</p> <p>While there is always room to build on our efforts, the hospital field has worked hard to prioritize the safety, protection and well-being of our caregivers and other essential workers.</p> <p>The health care field entered the COVID-19 pandemic with long-term challenges related to the workforce.</p> <ul> <li>In 2017, more than half of nurses were age 50 and older, and almost 30% were age 60 and older.</li> <li>Federal data shows that we are expecting to lose 500,000 nurses by the end of this year, many through retirement, bringing the overall shortage of nurses to 1.1 million.</li> </ul> <p>However, due to significant shortages of faculty, classroom space and clinical training sites, nursing schools actually had to turn away more than 80,000 qualified applicants in 2019. Hospital employment overall is down 95,600 from pre-pandemic levels, according to the consulting firm Altarum.</p> <p><strong>Because our workforce is our most precious resource, hospitals and health systems are committed to supporting them today, preparing them for tomorrow and building a pipeline for the future.</strong></p> <p>That’s why our field has created programs and developed resources to promote caregiver well-being and resiliency. Examples include helping to pay back student loans, providing childcare and transportation, offering tuition reimbursement and training benefits, providing referral and retention bonuses, and supporting programs that address mental and physical health.</p> <p>Hospitals are also developing new team-based care models that allow health care workers from various disciplines and specialties to provide customized, patient-centered care. This allows them to manage medical and social needs across all settings to improve care and enhance professional satisfaction.</p> <p>At the same time, many hospitals are facing serious financial pressures, including rapidly increasing costs for hiring and retaining staff. Through November 2021, labor expenses increased 12% compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to the consulting firm Kaufman Hall. And, when looked at through the lens of expenses per adjusted discharges, meaning labor costs per patient, the increase was a staggering 19.5%.</p> <p>Persistent staff shortages caused by the pandemic have forced hospitals to increase their use of contract workers to fill nursing, technician and other essential positions. Unfortunately, some staffing agencies are exploiting the severe workforce shortages by charging uniformly high rates and retaining up to 40% or more of those amounts for themselves.</p> <p>The conduct of some of these staffing agencies could suggest widespread coordination and other abuses, which is why the AHA and congressional lawmakers have asked federal agencies to investigate possible collusion and price gouging.</p> <p>Meanwhile, while some suggest there should be rigid nurse-to-patient ratios, we strongly believe that nurses need to be empowered with flexibility to determine appropriate staffing for the needs of their patients. A one-size-approach does not fit all when it comes to safe staffing, and strict, inflexible approaches will exacerbate the workforce shortage crisis.</p> <p><strong>Our workforce challenges are a national emergency that demand immediate attention from all levels of government and workable solutions.</strong></p> <p>These include:</p> <ul> <li>Lifting the cap on Medicare-funded physician residencies;</li> <li>Boosting support for nursing schools and faculty;</li> <li>Providing scholarships and loan forgiveness;</li> <li>And, expediting visas for all highly trained foreign health care workers.</li> </ul> <p>In addition, we must support state efforts to expand scope of practice laws to allow health care professionals to practice at the top of their license. We also need to stop health insurers’ burdensome bureaucratic practices that take caregivers away from the bedside.</p> <p>The people who work in hospitals and health systems are truly the heart of health care. We must support them and stay focused on keeping our patients and communities safe and healthy.</p> </div> <div class="col-md-4"> <p><a href="/system/files/media/file/2022/01/Rick-Pollack-workforce-advertorial-NYT-012722.pdf" target="_blank" title="Click here to download the Hospital Workforce Shortage Crisis Demands Immediate Action advertorial that appeared in the New York Times."><img alt="Hospital Workforce Shortage Crisis Demands Immediate Action by Rick Pollack, President and CEO, ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ Association." data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="7d4c4011-8a14-48dd-bd47-f5acc81e2b55" src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/Rick-Pollack-Workforce-Advertorial-NYT-012722.png" width="2062" height="2800"></a></p> </div> </div> </div> Thu, 27 Jan 2022 11:48:09 -0600 International Staff /lettercomment/2021-05-05-aha-letters-support-healthcare-workforce-resilience-act <hr /> <p>May 5, 2021</p> <div class="row"> <div class="col-md-6"> <p>The Honorable Brad Schneider<br /> U.S. House of Representatives<br /> 300 Cannon House Office Building<br /> Washington, DC 20515</p> <p>The Honorable Tom O’Halleran<br /> U.S. House of Representatives<br /> 318 Cannon House Office Building<br /> Washington, DC 20515</p> </div> <div class="col-md-6"> <p>The Honorable Tom Cole<br /> U.S. House of Representatives<br /> 2207 Rayburn House Office Building<br /> Washington, DC 20515</p> <p>The Honorable Don Bacon<br /> U.S. House of Representatives<br /> 1024 Longworth House Office Building<br /> Washington, DC 20515</p> </div> </div> <p>Dear Representatives Schneider, Cole, O’Halleran and Bacon:</p> <p>On behalf of our nearly 5,000 member hospitals, health systems and other health care organizations, our clinical partners – including more than 270,000 affiliated physicians, 2 million nurses and other caregivers – and the 43,000 health care leaders who belong to our professional membership groups, the ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ Association (AHA) writes in support of the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act.</p> <p>Ensuring an adequate supply of physicians and nurses during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is paramount. The U.S. continues to see significant increases in the number of COVID-19 patients in many communities. In those communities, the health care system is becoming stressed, and in some areas, hospitals are again reaching their full capacity.</p> <p>Your bipartisan legislation would address unprecedented health care worker shortages across the country, a foundational issue for our nation. The Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act (S. 1024/H.R. 2255) would expedite the visa authorization process for highly-trained nurses, who could support hospitals facing staffing shortages and ensure hospitals are better positioned to provide patient care.</p> <p>The legislation also would provide protections to U.S.-trained, international physicians who are vitally important to patient care in their communities but whose visa status puts them at heightened risk should they get sick. Under current law, if these physicians were to get sick and be unable to work, it could jeopardize their status in this country. Their status also limits their flexibility to provide care where they are most needed. The legislation addresses these vulnerabilities by ensuring these front-line physicians are provided certainty and stability in their visa status to continue providing patient care during the pandemic.</p> <p>Qualified international nurses and physicians are essential providers of patient care, and they are critical to our battle against COID-19. The legislation recognizes their critical role and contributions to our nation. We look forward to working with you on the passage of this legislation.</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>/s/</p> <p>Stacey Hughes<br /> Executive Vice President</p> <hr /> <p>May 5, 2021</p> <div class="row"> <div class="col-md-6"> <p>The Honorable Dick Durbin<br /> United States Senate<br /> 711 Hart Senate Office Building<br /> Washington, DC 20510</p> <p>The Honorable Patrick Leahy<br /> United States Senate<br /> 437 Russell Senate Office Building<br /> Washington, DC 20510</p> <p>The Honorable Christopher Coons<br /> United States Senate<br /> 218 Russell Senate Office Building<br /> Washington, DC 20510</p> </div> <div class="col-md-6"> <p>The Honorable John Cornyn<br /> United States Senate<br /> 517 Hart Senate Office Building<br /> Washington, DC 20510</p> <p>The Honorable Todd Young<br /> United States Senate<br /> 185 Dirksen Senate Office Building<br /> Washington, DC 20510</p> <p>The Honorable Susan Collins<br /> United States Senate<br /> 413 Dirksen Senate Office Building<br /> Washington, DC 20510</p> </div> </div> <p>Dear Senators Durbin, Cornyn, Leahy, Young, Coons and Collins:</p> <p>On behalf of our nearly 5,000 member hospitals, health systems and other health care organizations, our clinical partners – including more than 270,000 affiliated physicians, 2 million nurses and other caregivers – and the 43,000 health care leaders who belong to our professional membership groups, the ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ Association (AHA) writes in support of the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act.</p> <p>Ensuring an adequate supply of physicians and nurses during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is paramount. The U.S. continues to see significant increases in the number of COVID-19 patients in many communities. In those communities, the health care system is becoming stressed, and in some areas, hospitals are again reaching their full capacity.</p> <p>Your bipartisan legislation would address unprecedented health care worker shortages across the country, a foundational issue for our nation. The Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act (S. 1024/H.R. 2255) would expedite the visa authorization process for highly-trained nurses, who could support hospitals facing staffing shortages and ensure hospitals are better positioned to provide patient care.</p> <p>The legislation also would provide protections to U.S.-trained, international physicians who are vitally important to patient care in their communities but whose visa status puts them at heightened risk should they get sick. Under current law, if these physicians were to get sick and be unable to work, it could jeopardize their status in this country. Their status also limits their flexibility to provide care where they are most needed. The legislation addresses these vulnerabilities by ensuring these front-line physicians are provided certainty and stability in their visa status to continue providing patient care during the pandemic.</p> <p>Qualified international nurses and physicians are essential providers of patient care, and they are critical to our battle against COID-19. The legislation recognizes their critical role and contributions to our nation. We look forward to working with you on the passage of this legislation.</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>/s/</p> <p>Stacey Hughes<br /> Executive Vice President</p> Wed, 05 May 2021 15:09:13 -0500 International Staff