While Travel Nurse Costs Impact Hospitals, Health Hiring Rises
The effects of ongoing staffing crises on Alaska's hospitals is reported, with worries about the cost of travel nurses and the impact on permanent staff. Modern Healthcare also reports on how some hospitals are being forced to reduce their services over staff woes.
Anchorage Daily News:
Alaska’s Hospitals Are Relying On Lower 48 Nurses To Fill Empty Positions. It’s A Costly Strategy
Experts say the state’s reliance on travel nurses comes at a cost. The practice is expensive and could both demoralize and lure away permanent full-time workers who traditionally make up the core of hospital care here. (Berman, 9/4)
More about health care personnel —
Modern Healthcare:
Hospitals Reduce Services Over Staffing Concerns
Memorial Hospital of Carbon County lost five labor and delivery nurses to travel jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. For a department made up of just 12 people, the impact was immense. The hospital in Rawlins, Wyoming, turned to contract workers and paid three to four times as much for nurses to fill vacancies so the maternity department could operate. (Christ, 9/2)
Modern Healthcare:
Jobs Report Shows Healthcare Hiring Increase In August
Healthcare employers added an estimated 48,200 jobs in August as hiring rose from the previous month, according to preliminary U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Friday. (Hudson, 9/2)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
UW Health Nurses Seeking Union Recognition Give 10-Day Strike Notice
UW Health nurses notified hospital officials Friday of their intention to strike, a legally required 10-day notice. Barring a discussion between nurses and hospital officials in which an agreement is reached to recognize the nursing union, SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin, the strike will be held Sept. 13-16. (VanEgeren, 9/1)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
How Therapists Cope With Stress And Deal With Their Own Mental Health
When Dr. Jessi Gold would log off from seeing her patients during the pandemic, she would go straight to bed. “I didn’t know I was burned out until my therapist told me,” she said. “And I’m a burnout expert.” (Sultan, 9/4)
Also —
KHN:
Meet Mary Wakefield, The Nurse Administrator Tasked With Revamping The CDC
It’s been a rough couple of years for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Facing a barrage of criticism for repeatedly mishandling its response to the covid-19 pandemic and more recently monkeypox, the agency has acknowledged it failed and needs to change. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky has tapped Mary Wakefield — an Obama administration veteran and nurse — to helm a major revamp of the sprawling agency and its multibillion-dollar budget. Making the changes will require winning over wary career CDC scientists, combative members of Congress, and a general public that in many cases has stopped looking to the agency for guidance. (Whitehead, 9/6)
