Talent Tuesday: The Healthcare Workforce

Taking a break from who is hiring and who was hired, we rounded up some reading on the state of the healthcare workforce. Like many things in our lives for the past three years the pandemic has taken a toll on it. The healthcare workforce might be on the top of the list of disruption. With 18% of healthcare workers having left their jobs and another 12% being laid off, what are the solutions for healthcare as a whole? You can’t open a paper, magazine, or watch news and not hear about the crisis that has evolved. Here are some insights and reports.

In the News

Relias Achieves FedRAMP® In Process Designation for Workforce Enablement Solutions
Relias, the trusted education and workforce development partner to more than 11,000 healthcare and human services organizations and 4.5 million caregivers, announced it received a FedRAMP® (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) In Process designation for its solutions. This progress toward FedRAMP authorization reflects Relias’ dedication to meeting the highest standards of privacy and security for federal agencies seeking compliant, secure, and scalable training solutions.

Jackson Healthcare Launches Venn to Exclusively Focus on Workforce Optimization in the Physician and Advanced Practice Staffing Market
Jackson Healthcare® announced the launch of Venn, the newest addition to its family of highly specialized healthcare staffing, search and technology companies. Exclusively focused on helping healthcare organizations of all sizes gain holistic visibility into their workforces to better plan, manage and optimize physician and advanced practice provider (APP) staffing across their operations, Venn draws on its unique suite of workforce optimization solutions powered by technology expressly designed for the healthcare market.

Southcoast Health Engages ShiftMed’s Supplemental Workforce Solution to Optimize Hospital Labor Needs
ShiftMed, a workforce scheduling technology company, has announced its exclusive partnership with Southcoast Health, a prominent healthcare system serving Southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. This new initiative will begin providing CNAs for hard to fill shifts at Southcoast Health’s three hospitals: Charlton Memorial in Fall River, St. Luke’s in New Bedford, and Tobey in Wareham, Massachusetts. It represents the latest in a series of efforts by the community health system to support its workforce and ensure optimal staffing for patients.

To Tackle Nursing Shortage, University of Vermont Launches New Nursing Degree
At a time when rising demand for healthcare and a retiring nursing workforce is contributing to a critical need for nurses nationwide, the University of Vermont’s (UVM) new Direct Entry Master of Science in Nursing program offers a fast track for career-changers looking to enter the nursing profession. Designed for students with bachelor’s degrees in fields other than nursing, the new direct entry program offers a partial solution to increase the nursing workforce through an accelerated path for those with non-nursing backgrounds to enter the profession.

Nursa Introduces Technology Partnership with UKG
Nursa, a nationwide platform that exists to put a nurse at the bedside of every patient in need, announced a new technology partnership with UKG, a global provider of HR, payroll, workforce management, and culture solutions for all people. The collaboration benefits organizations and individuals that utilize both Nursa and UKG Pro by enabling real-time updates and notifications. Through this new integration, facility leaders can post shift openings and quickly connect directly with qualified clinicians looking for work, all from their UKG Pro Workforce Management schedules.

Relias Partners With AlayaCare to Streamline Home Health and Home Care Training
Relias, the trusted workforce enablement partner to more than 11,000 healthcare and human services organizations, announced its partnership with AlayaCare, an end-to-end platform for home-based care, to improve training processes and patient care outcomes. Together, AlayaCare and Relias are enabling home care providers with the necessary technology to prepare them for the future of the industry with the goal of delivering better patient outcomes.

To Read

HealthStream Survey Discovers Underutilized Opportunity to Recruit Nurses: Student Nurse Rotations
HealthStream, a healthcare technology platform for workforce solutions, published a new survey of over 5,100 nursing & clinical students who have completed a clinical rotation in 2023 that queried them about their experiences working in a healthcare organization as a student, their future professional careers, and what they valued the most from their clinical rotations. The “voice of the nursing student” with regard to clinical rotations and recruiting is of much interest to nursing schools and healthcare providers alike.

Nurse and Physician Workplace Engagement Seeing Signs of Recovery—While Key Roles Like Managers Still Struggle
Press Ganey, a company helping healthcare providers and health plans transform the Human Experience, published new data on key workforce measures on engagement, retention, and staff turnover, painting a mixed picture for clinical and non-clinical staff at hospitals and other health provider venues. The “Employee Experience in Healthcare 2024” report depicts findings from analyzing 2.2 million employee responses—including 345,000 registered nurses, 131,000 physicians and providers—from annual, pulse, and lifecycle surveys from the previous calendar year.

Care.com Report Reveals Workplace Common Ground: Care Benefits
Over the last few years, the radical shift in how we work has also changed expectations between employers and employees. However, Care.com’s 2024 Future of Benefits Report, recently released, reveals that there is common ground to be found in this battle: care benefits. From productivity, to workplace dynamics, to generational harmony, the research clearly shows that care benefits enable both sides to get what they want.

State Of The Sector: Nursing Home Labor Staffing Shortages Persist Despite Unprecedented Efforts To Attract More Staff
The American Health Care Association (AHCA) released its 2024 State of the Sector Report​, highlighting a recent survey of 441 nursing home providers. The findings of the survey reflect the current state of the nursing home sector, which despite ongoing investments, is struggling to rebuild its workforce and recover from the pandemic. Providers are also concerned the finalization of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) federal staffing mandate for nursing homes would make matters worse.

Resources

Remote Workforce and HIPAA
Twitter: @HIPAASecureNow

Whether a change in your business structure came about from the pandemic, or it just makes more sense for your team, remote work is the norm for many more professionals today than it was in years past.

If you’re in healthcare, this means that you need to factor in the HIPAA component as well as cybersecurity to protect you, the business, and your patients.