The Task Force on the Future of the Nursing Workforce seeks to develop a vision for enhancing and supporting North Carolina’s nursing workforce, with a particular focus on licensed practical nurses (LPNs) and registered nurses (RNs). Task force members will meet six times between February and December 2023.

State of Healthcare in North Carolina Report Includes Workforce Challenges
NCHA has released a new annual report about the state of healthcare in North Carolina as of year-end 2022. The report explains how health systems and hospitals provide extensive community benefits and economic impacts, in addition to making advancements to expand access, drive innovation, improve health equity, and to recruit and support a diverse workforce. The report also details some of the challenges NCHA members face, from workforce shortages and inflation to reimbursement cuts and the lack of Medicaid expansion in the state.

NCHA Provides Sample Nurse Traveler Policy
NCHA created a sample nurse traveler policy as guidance for hospitals’ and health systems to help facilitate predictability in coverage and ensure quality care for patients. A best practice that some hospitals use when working with travelers is having a restriction on how close the traveler lives. NCHA cannot provide a recommendation on the distance under this policy, and each hospital or health system should make its own independent determination about implementing this guidance, particularly with regard to imposing any distance restrictions.

AHA Guide Offers Innovative Strategies to Attract, Retain Workers
The American Hospital Association (AHA) released its annual snapshot of employment at America’s hospitals and health systems, which offers innovative strategies to help organizations build a robust workforce in the face of ongoing shortages and reconnect their clinicians to purpose and help them thrive. Click here to read the 2023 Health Care Workforce Scan. Also attached is the Executive Summary, powerpoint presentations (executive summary and full) and sample s ocial posts.

Workforce Challenges Report from AHA and AVIA Health
While the list of actions that hospital and health system leaders can take to navigate workforce challenges can seem overwhelming, a good place to start is with technology. The latest addition to the AHA’s Strengthening the Workforce series is the Workforce Technology Guide produced in partnership with AVIA Health, a digital transformation partner for health care organizations. The report offers expert insights and an impact framework that demonstrate how digital approaches can guide your workforce strategies.

Strengthening the Health Care Workforce
This report, developed under the guidance of the AHA Board of Trustees’ Task Force on Workforce and with input from many members of the AHA, will help hospitals navigate workforce challenges and opportunities, as well as highlight strategies and resources to assist on these pivotal efforts. The report includes this toolkit.

AHA Releases 2023 Environmental Scan
AHA recently released its 2023 Environmental Scan, which provides key data and insights on the current healthcare landscape and can help organizations explore the pandemic’s ramifications on the healthcare field for the upcoming year and beyond. It covers a variety of topics, including workforce shortages, resiliency and technology solutions.

Guide to digital workforce solutions
A report from AHA’s Strengthening the Health Care Workforce series offers frameworks and insights to help healthcare leaders identify and implement digital workforce solutions to alleviate burden and build capacity.

AONL Compendium Rolls Out Best Practices for Recruiting and Retaining Nurses
The American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL) released a three-part compendium focuses on best practices to manage nursing workforce complexities. The sections focus on recruiting and retaining nurses, leadership, academic-practice partnerships, culture, and compensation and benefits.

AONL Releases Latest Findings from Nurse Leader Survey
Staff emotional health and well-being, staff retention and the cost of travel nursing were the top three challenges facing nurse leaders, although staff emotional health has improved since last year, according to this survey by the American Organization for Nursing Leadership and Joslin Insight. Nurse leaders said it was most difficult to respond to challenges related to financial resources and the traveler/contingent workforce, followed by staff retention, health equity, and workplace violence/incivility.

Study projects nursing shortage crisis will continue without concerted action
An estimated 97,000 registered nurses left the workforce during the past two years due to stress, burnout and retirements, and another 610,388 reported an intent to leave over the next five years.’

Nurse Staffing Think Tank Develops Toolkit to Address Staffing Crisis
The Nurse Staffing Think Tank, a diverse group of nursing leaders, frontline nurses, CEOs, chief financial officers, human resources executives, and patient safety representatives, identified six priority areas that need urgent actionThe group’s toolkit includes a set of priorities and recommendations that provide immediate strategies for those six priority areas that can be feasibly implemented in the short term (12-18 months) to help address the nurse staffing crisis.

Study: Women working in the healthcare industry
A study from McKinsey and LeanIn.org about women working in the healthcare industry finds that despite women being the majority in entry level positions, trends in promotion rates, retention, and external hiring have not kept pace to improve representation of women at more senior management levels in healthcare.

From High School to RN: An Innovative Approach to Creating a Diverse Workforce
Wellstar Health System, in Marietta, Ga., has created a program designed to support students’ career paths in nursing at the health care system, geared to appeal to a broad and diverse group of students. The Wellstar Nursing Careers Pathway program begins with high school students and helps address the statewide need for certified nursing assistants (CNAs), licensed practical nurses (LPNs), associate-degree RNs, and baccalaureate-prepared RNs.

AHA Releases Guide to Building a Community Health Worker Program
The American Hospital Association (AHA) recently released a guide offering research, resources and case studies to help organizations build a community health worker program to strengthen and sustain their health care workforce. CHWs are community members who serve as connectors between health care providers and consumers to promote health among groups that have traditionally been underserved.

Near- and long-term strategies for strengthening the healthcare workforce
Under the leadership of the AHA Board Task Force on Workforce, AHA created a three-part guide to help hospitals navigate workforce challenges and opportunities, as well as highlight strategies and resources to assist on these pivotal efforts. Topics range from workforce well-being to data and analytics; diversity, equity and inclusion; and creative staffing models.

AHA Boardroom Brief: How boards can support workforce behavioral health
People working in health care face incredible challenges that take a toll on their physical and mental health every day. A significant number of health care professionals experience burnout, depression and other forms of distress, and are at increased risk for suicide. These challenges, exacerbated by the pandemic, have heightened the importance of making the behavioral health of health care workers a priority and providing easy access to awareness, prevention and treatment resources.

Improving Clinician Experience to Drive Well-being: Using technology to support the clinical workforce
Understanding the experiences of clinicians is paramount to driving wellness efforts, staff retention and recruitment. This executive dialogue explores strategies to improve clinician well-being and how technology can play a critical role in supporting the clinical workforce.

Surgeon General Calls for Collective Action to Address Health Worker Burnout
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, M.D., issued an advisory recommending a whole-of-society approach to addressing health worker burnout. Among other actions, the report calls for reducing administrative burdens, improving workplace and learning environments, increasing access to mental health and substance use disorder treatment, addressing workforce shortages, preventing workplace violence, and promoting peer support and team-based care models.

HHS Reports on Pandemic’s Impact on Clinician Shortages, Mental Health
The COVID-19 pandemic has put extreme stress on the healthcare workforce in the United States, contributing to growing worker shortages, burnout and mental health concerns, according to a report released recently by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). “Even after the pandemic, many of the effects the pandemic has had on the healthcare workforce will likely persist,” the report adds. “Addressing these impacts as well as the underlying challenges that pre-dated the pandemic can help build a stronger and more resilient healthcare system for the future.”

Collaborative Finalizes National Plan for Health Workforce Well-Being
The National Academy of Medicine Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-Being and Resilience finalized its National Plan for Health Workforce Well-Being, which builds on six years of work among 200 participants. The plan identifies goals and actions to help health care leaders, educators, governing boards, payers and federal agencies achieve health workforce well-being across seven priority areas: create and sustain positive work and learning environments and culture; invest in measurement, assessment, strategies and research; support mental health and reduce stigma; address compliance, regulatory and policy barriers for daily work; engage effective technology tools; institutionalize well-being as a long-term value; and recruit and retain a diverse and inclusive health workforce.

Suicide Prevention: Evidence-Informed Interventions for the Health Care Workforce
AHA’s “Suicide Prevention: Evidence-Informed Interventions for the Health Care Workforce” guide identifies three drivers of suicide among health care workers: stigma, limited access to behavioral health resources and treatment, and job-related stressors. The guide offers a curated list of 12 evidence-informed interventions that hospitals and health systems can implement to reduce the risk of suicide among health care workers.

WittKieffer Report — Burnout Among Healthcare Executives: A Call to Action
Much has been written on burnout in the healthcare provider ranks, and rightly so. Little, however, has been written about the emotional toll faced by healthcare executives in recent years. That toll is significant. While not on the front lines, executives are accountable for those who are – and for the financial imperatives required to keep hospital and clinic doors open. In this new WittKieffer survey report – Burnout in Healthcare Executives: A Call to Action – healthcare leaders reveal just how traumatic and challenging the past few years have been. A total of 233 healthcare executives, including 63 CEOs, completed the survey.

Health System Climate Study Shows Workforce Resiliency, Recruiting Key Focus Area
The University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver) released its second Health Systems’ Climate Study with Guidepost, which shows systems putting more effort into strengthening their workforce and recruiting efforts. More than 130 health systems CEOs participated in the study which provides a closer look at current industry trends. According to the survey, 90% of the CEOs said they’d be focusing on reskilling and upskilling current employees to address these issues. 87% of the CEOs said are focusing on hiring a broad range of talent, with 84% agreeing that improving diversity improves the system’s brand, reputation, and consumer satisfaction.

The Clinician Well-being Playbook 2.0
Addressing burnout among clinicians and other health care professionals is a top challenge facing hospitals and health systems today, and fundamental to delivering high-quality care. The AHA’s Physician Alliance Clinician Well-being Playbook 2.0 will help leaders systematically tackle the drivers of burnout and implement changes to promote well-being.

Supporting the Team
Section 1 of AHA’s Strengthening the Health Care Workforce, Strategies for Now, Near and Far focuses on the key areas of supporting a hospital’s or health system’s most valuable asset — its employees. Topics are workforce well-being, behavioral health and preventing workplace violence. The guide offers immediate and longer-term strategies to help hospital and health system leaders navigate workforce challenges and opportunities.

Workforce Solutions: Team-based Models of Care
This resource highlights approaches used throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to bring teams together to provide care.

Nursing Groups Update Guiding Principles for Mitigating Workplace Violence
AONL and the Emergency Nurses Association recently updated their Guiding Principles on Mitigating Violence in the Workplace. The updated document incorporates best practices based on the latest research, and an accompanying toolkit helps hospitals and health systems customize their workplace violence protection programs to best protect their employees and patients.

Creating Safer Workplaces: A guide to mitigating violence in health care settings
This guide from the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety recommends action steps for mitigating violence in healthcare settings and building a safer workplace.

Creating Safer Workplaces: Safety Strategies that Worked
This compendium examines how seven hospitals and health systems, of varying size and location, adopted new safety strategies to create safer workplaces for their employees.

Case Study: Leveraging Community Partnerships to Take a Stand Against Hospital Violence
This AHA case study showcases a real-world example of ways hospitals are mitigating violence risk to build a safe workplace. Bristol (Conn.) Health reduced recorded incidents of workplace violence from 154 to 24 within just three years by upgrading its incident reporting system, boosting prevention education and forging an organization-wide culture of safety.

Issue Brief – Building a Safe Workplace and Community: Mitigating the Risk of Violence
The American Hospital Association’s Hospitals Against Violence (HAV) initiative hosted the American Society for Health Care Risk Management (ASHRM) for a facilitated dialogue to explore challenges and current strategies to mitigate the risk of violence. The discussion fostered an exchange of ideas and solutions that informed this issue brief and accompanying case studies.

Case Study: Innovative Strategies to Reduce Workplace Violence
This AHA case study highlights innovative strategies from NewYork-Presbyterian to reduce workplace violence risk. Based in New York City, the 11-hospital health system uses electronic medical record flagging, behavioral risk assessment and mass casualty event training to prevent and mitigate workplace violence incidents.

Case Study: Inova’s SAFE Team Addresses Workplace Violence
Inova Health System credits its multidisciplinary team Safety Always for Everyone for reducing the severity and frequency of injuries in its emergency departments, behavioral health units and across the system. The SAFE team — comprised of experts from nursing, medicine, behavioral health, security, chaplains, pharmacy and other essential departments — responds to and mitigates violent incidents, conducts comprehensive debriefs, develops and updates policies and procedures, and otherwise advances Inova’s efforts to address workplace violence.

CMS Issues Memo on Violence in Hospitals, Expectations
A new memorandum from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is reinforcing the agency’s role in enforcing regulatory expectations that patients and hospital staff have an environment that prioritizes their safety to ensure effective delivery of health care. The memo, from the directors of the Quality, Safety & Oversight and Survey & Operations groups, reminds hospitals of their responsibility, per Medicare’s conditions of participation, to provide adequate training, sufficient staffing levels, and ongoing assessment of patients and residents for aggressive behavior and indicators, with an overarching expectation that care interventions and environments are appropriately adapted. CMS notes that in the past, it has cited hospitals for failure to meet these obligations.

Hospital Workplace Safety Sign Available
Healthcare workers across the country are experiencing a growing rate of incidents of violence against front-line caregivers, including here in North Carolina. NCHA has developed the attached workplace safety sign for members to display throughout their facilities communicating the consequences of committing physical harm toward healthcare workers. In North Carolina, attacking a hospital worker anywhere on hospital grounds is a Class 1 felony.

Tatyana Kelly

Senior Vice President, Planning, Strategy & Member Services

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Private: Jai Kumar

Vice President, Innovation; Interim President, CaroNova

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