Page 8 - Healthcare News Nov/Dec 2021

just not able to do that; if you don’t have a certain volume, you’re out of business.” Wearing her staffing-agency hat for a
moment, Flahive-Dickson noted that Mas- sachusetts is the only state in the country that puts a cap on what a staffing agency can charge a facility; in fact, it’s illegal to go over the cap.
“Everyone is trying to outbid each other, and these employees find themselves jumping from opportunity to opportunity simply because the opportunity is there. You can’t blame them for doing that, but it’s completely unsustainable.”
Agency nurses are causing financial problems for hospitals because of the pay
they command, Hatiras said. As a result, nurses are leaving their employers, signing on with agencies as ‘travelers,’ and then often returning to the same hospitals at two or three times the pay.
“The staff is making significantly more money, and it enriches those agencies, but the hospitals and consumers are footing the bill,” he said. “That’s an additional problem for us, but we’re not alone.”
HMC offers stability of schedule, without the travel, that agencies can’t, he noted, and has been offering incentives — like bonuses for signing up and for staying on for a certain amount of time, as well as tuition reimbursement and loan forgiveness. “But
we can’t match the $100 an hour agencies are paying.”
What all this means, Berman said, is that “employees have far more power to
be very discriminating about their future employment. I think that’s wonderful — it does require employers to think differently than in the past. You can’t take for granted that people will show up at your door. You need to do a better job of messaging: ‘this is a good place to work; everyone is treated fairly.’”
And not just say it, but back it up, he added.
“Competitive providers are raising wag- es, which is one of the positive impacts. It’s
tough on employers, but those employers are becoming more competitive in terms of working conditions and wages, and that should not be minimized.”
Priming the Pump
Hatiras said the lack of interstate licens- ing reciprocity doesn’t help efforts to boost nursing staff, and state-level efforts to create reciprocity have run into union resistance. But he added that any effort to put more workers in the pipeline locally would be welcome.
“I don’t know if the pandemic has discouraged people who ordinarily would want to get into nursing but are staying away from it,” he told BusinessWest.
One step Holyoke Medical Center has taken is to reduce the volume of non-clin- ical work that its nurses do, like personal hygiene, handling phone calls, and procur- ing supplies. In that way, the workforce crunch is lessened not by hiring more nurses — which the hospital would do if it could — but giving them more time to do the clinical work they’re uniquely trained to do.
“I don’t think this is going to be
a short-lived situation. It’s going to take a long time to dig out from under ... you can’t refresh the pipeline immediately.”
“We decided to go to a model where we add more more staff that acts in a support role — certified nursing assistants, phle- botomists, secretarial help. At times when staffing is down, those support functions will take some of those duties and respon- sibilities off nurses and give nurses more time to be able to do medication manage- ment, care documentation, all that.”
The goal in the past has been one CNA for each two nurses on a shift, but HMC is now shooting for a one-to-one ratio. “The feedback from nurses has been tremen- dous,” Hatiras said. “Given everything going on, we think this is a good solution.”
It’s a way to reduce the burnout factor, which is real and significant, Flahive-Dick- son said. When it’s not chasing healthcare workers toward early retirement, she noted, it’s making others more picky about their work setting. Her staffing agency hears from some clients who want to stay away
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