The US healthcare system is experiencing a severe workforce shortage, with projections of 200k-450k nurse shortages and 38k-120k physician shortages by 2025 and 2034 respectively. This labor crisis is significantly impacting health system finances, with labor costs over 50% of expenses and increasing 10-15% annually, outpacing insurance revenue growth. The key drivers include burnout from insufficient staffing during the pandemic, an aging workforce with over half of nurses over 50 planning retirement, and new competitive opportunities in telehealth that offer more flexibility. In the short term, health systems can improve efficiency, outsource non clinical functions, and leverage automation, while long term solutions require investing in the next generation workforce through training programs
Need to highlight it’s not just nurses…but nearly every aspect of care delivery and operations…coders, billing and follow up, Medical Assistants, Radiology techs, etc.
Also a revenue problem…if nobody there to care/cover, can’t see patients and volumes decline
Also a revenue problem…if nobody there to care/cover, can’t see patients and volumes decline
Can’t change the market forces overnight
1) Implement shared governance to get shared input on staffing, workflow, etc
Incremental investments in items that increase productivity
2) More patients with the same resources or same patients with fewer resources
3) Also known as labor productivity…right resources, skill mix at the right time…avoid unnecessary overtime, contractor dollars, etc
4) Using the levers above and coming up…compensate and recognize CURRENT valuable team members…TALK ABOUT “TRAINING PAY”; turnover is a silent financial killer and tgerrible for patient care
Become a great place to work…sadly this won’t change overnight; just remember that without caregivers YOU HAVE NO REVENUE. You are now competing with
Building the next generation workforce…investing in long-term policy, promotion and training programs to revive the caregiver workforce
3) Start moving towards more drastic shifts to innovative and aligned care models…
Many health systems struggle to do the right thing due to misaligned or conflicting incentives that could be detrimental to their finances