06Jun

This fall’s surge in COVID cases is creating a nationwide “bidding war” for nurses so intense that pay is soaring as high as $8,000 and $10,000 a week.

According to a report by Kaiser Health News, “The fall surge in COVID cases has turned hospital staffing into a sort of national bidding war, with hospitals willing to pay exorbitant wages to secure the nurses they need.”

In South Dakota, hospitals are paying nurses $6,200 a week. A hospital in Fargo, North Dakota advertised more than $8,000 a week.

“Calling the labor market for registered nurses ‘cutthroat’ is an understatement,” said Adam Seth Litwin, an associate professor of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University. “Even if the health care sector can somehow find more beds, it cannot just go out and buy more front-line caregivers.”

Nurses have long been among the hardest jobs to fill. In 2018, a Moody’s Investor Service report said the shortage of nurses had become so critical it was threatening hospital finances. A few months earlier, Reuters reported that to fill nursing shortages hospitals were spending $4.8 billion annually on travel nurses, twice what they were spending three years before.

With COVID patients flooding hospitals nationwide, demand for nurses has now become so intense that pay is skyrocketing, prompting long-time staff nurses to join the ranks of travel nurses. These contract workers fill temporary positions before traveling to another temporary nursing job.

David Deane, senior vice president of a travel nurse job board, estimates there are at least 50,000 travel nurses today, a jump from the 31,000 in 2018. One large specialty staffing firm says it added 1,000 nurses to its “reservist” roster just over the Halloween weekend.

Many of these new travel nurses are coming from rural and small hospitals that can’t afford to match the pay offered elsewhere.

“That is a huge threat,” Angelina Salazar, CEO of the Western Healthcare Alliance told Kaiser Health News. The alliance is a consortium of 29 small hospitals in rural Colorado and Utah. “There’s no way rural hospitals can afford to pay that kind of salary,” she said.

That’s hastening a “brain drain” of nurses, said Tessa Johnson, president of the North Dakota Nurses Association, and not only to hospitals in metro areas, but internationally too.

“We’ve sent nurses to Aruba, the Bahamas and Curacao because they’ve needed help with COVID,” said Deane. “You’re going down there, you’re making $5,000 a week and all your expenses are paid, right? Who’s not gonna say yes?”

Photo by Jakayla Toney on Unsplash

[bdp_post_carousel]

author avatar
Green Key

Majority of Employers Still Honoring Job Offers and Internships

There’s some good news for college students anxious about their summer internships. Almost two-thirds of employers intend to go ahead with them. The same is true for the jobs they offered to graduating seniors.

A survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found 64% of employers are not revoking their offers of full-time or internship employment. They may shift the start date and 29% expect to move interns to a virtual program, but only 15% are reducing the number.

The survey did find about a quarter of employers were considering what to do about the offers they made, given that no one is certain what will happen in the next several weeks.

Even if they decide to make cuts, there’s no reason to despair, says Green Key’s Clare Wright. There are companies still hiring. In fact, the dearth of campus recruiting has created opportunities.

“Smaller firms will have a chance to snap up those high caliber candidates who are eager to get working right out of school.”

Katelin Carbon, who as Green Key Resources’ Recruitment Director focuses on healthcare, says jobs are available for new grads in physical and occupational therapy and as speech language pathologists.

“Given all that is happening,” she add, “There is a huge need” for RNs especially in ICUs and emergency rooms, and for respiratory therapists, where there is a severe shortage.

“We encourage new grads to upload their resumes to job boards – Careerbuilder, Monster, ZipRecruiter, LinkedIn.”

Add Handshake to that list, adds Wright, who says, it is “an excellent resource for both college students and employers looking to hire.”

Especially for employers who do have internships and jobs to offer, Wright recommends being more proactive and creative in recruiting.

“Employers should reach out to colleges who are currently holding virtual career fairs and offering online career counselling to seniors,” she says. “Companies should invest heavily in their social media presence as well as hiring through their own staff networks – everyone will know someone affected by this pandemic so word of mouth networking will be strong.”

Wright, an Executive Director with a focus on office support, adds that Green Key Resources may be able to help.

“We are always ready and willing to talk to recent grads. While most clients like to see some relevant internship or corporate experience, often companies will look to grads with any kind of work experience such as summer jobs, or customer service.”

Wright, who graduated college in 2009 during the worst recession since the Depression, has some words of encouragement for college students: “Try to breathe. The job market will bounce back.

“This will not be the graduation that you expected, but it will be okay. You might not end up in your dream job right away, but make connections, create a LinkedIn page, network, temp, finish up school strong, use your college career department, attend a virtual career fair that many colleges are hosting, focus on sectors that are hiring right now — healthcare, tech, pharma, e-commerce are all still hiring.”

Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash

[bdp_post_carousel]

author avatar
Green Key
Jun 6, 2023

Hospitals Ready In Case of ‘Second Wave’ This Fall

Six months into the global coronavirus pandemic, health care experts across the US feel much better prepared to handle a potential “second wave” should it occur this fall.

“We’ve evolved. We’re in a much better state now than we were in the beginning of the pandemic,” Michael Calderwood, associate chief quality officer at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, told Healthcare Dive. “There’s been a lot of learning.”

In a survey reported by Healthcare Dive, healthcare executives express fewer concerns about a possible surge in patients when the usual flu season begins this fall than they do about staffing and employee burnout.

Hospital finances are by far a broader concern. When the seriousness of the pandemic became apparent the government ordered a shutdown of all but essential services hitting hospitals hard.

The cancellation of elective procedures and the dramatic reduction in other visits cost hospitals and health systems $200.6 billion, according to the American Hospital Association. That has to at least partially factor into the thinking of the 62% of survey respondents who don’t think a similar response would be appropriate again given what is now known about the virus.

Their worries about patient volumes is well-founded, said Dion Sheidy, a partner and healthcare advisory leader at KPMG.

“While we think demand will come back, we’ve seen some flattening on demand in certain aspects that may be the new indicator of the new norm in terms of how people seek care,” Sheidy said.

The rise of telehealth visits is part of that new norm, embraced by a large majority of the 100 healthcare system executives in the survey. As medical offices and many walk-in clinics closed, Medicare and health insurance providers relaxed policies and expanded their coverage of virtual doctor visits. Telehealth visits surged. Many providers saw a doubling, tripling and more of their pre-shutdown business.

The survey respondents support the regulatory loosening. In the survey, 84% support the ability to offer telehealth services to patients located in their homes and outside of designated rural areas. Previously, many insurers only reimbursed telehealth costs for patients who lived far from a doctor or medical facility.

Almost as many executives (79%) support expanding the services that may be provided by telehealth. Smaller, but still substantial percentages favor expanding the type of practitioners allowed to provide virtual care and provide insurance coverage for devices such as computers and cell phones for telehealth.

[bdp_post_carousel]

author avatar
Green Key