Short on Staff

For this blog post I chose to write about an article I came across titled, “Short on staff: Nursing crisis strains U.S. hospitals,” from Reuters. In the article, it states how a non-profit hospital is starting to take a toll and feel the burden of the short nursing staff. In order for the Charleston Medical to run day to day operations they have to hire visiting or “travel” nurses which is costing them $12 million by the end of the year.  Not just Charleston Medical but across the country the amount spent on visiting nurses has doubled in three years. Hospitals are trying their best to retain nurses by offering higher salaries and other benefits such as student loan repayment, free housing, and career mentoring. Ron Moore, a retired nurse, was quoted saying, “It’s better to pay a traveler than to shut a bed.”

In situations like this where hospitals need to decide whether to hire visiting nurses or close departments they need to refer back to their mission statements and the values they hold. While visiting nurses can be expensive many times they are needed, like a Charleston Medical, to run day to day operations. The number or nurses are declining so officials need to think of ways to hire new nurses or retain their current staff. Whether it is partner with a university or offer better salaries and benefits, nurses are vital staff members in administering patient care.



Reuters Article 

Comments

  1. Mark BonicaOctober 21, 2017 at 5:22 PM

    Nurses are indeed vital to any HCO. We wrestled with temp nurses in several of the facilities I worked in. Having nurses provided by temp agencies allowed a lot of flexibility, but they were tremendously expensive. On the other hand, if you hired full time nurses, you had to make sure the beds were filled or else you were paying high salaries for people to stand around. It's a complex calculus.

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  2. MelissaNovember 3, 2017 at 6:31 PM

    Unfortunately, Charleston Medical is not the only facility, medical group, that is having to take these kind of measures to keep their beds open. Here in Las Vegas due to our transient (visiting) population we do not have enough hospital beds in the valley to meet the demand of both the residents and visitors. During flu season (Oct-Mar) we frequently plus up our beds in rooms and in very bad cases in hallways to meet the demand of the patients requiring inpatient status. We also suffer from various staffing shortages because many people do not see the benefit of living here, other than the weather. Our public school system is ranked 48th in the states, we have one of the largest public school districts in the U.S., but I am on a my tangent and soapbox. I enjoyed the read. Where ever you settle, it will be good to understand the supply and demand as well as staffing in your area as a healthcare administrator.

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