Hawaii healthcare workforce professionals mentioned initiatives designed to draw much-needed staff to the sphere in the course of the 2023 Hawaii State of Reform Well being Coverage Convention.
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Janna Hoshide, senior director of healthcare workforce improvement at Healthcare Affiliation of Hawaii (HAH), referenced the 2022 Healthcare Workforce Initiative Report HAH launched a pair months in the past. The report confirmed that Hawaii’s want for healthcare professionals has grown by 76% since 2019, when HAH launched its inaugural report.
“In 2019, we reported a scarcity of two,200 positions,” Hoshide stated. “In 2022, we’re reporting near 4,000 place openings.”
Whereas recruiting new staff is difficult, employers should stay vigilant of their retention efforts as effectively. Hawaii Heart for Nursing Director Laura Reichhardt stated the middle performed a survey in 2021, which confirmed that 25% of the nursing workforce stated they had been so stressed they thought-about leaving the occupation. Each elevated workloads and monetary compensation are contributing to retention challenges.
“Our CNOs say nurses are doing much more work, and that they want and should be cared for,” Reichhardt stated. “Everyone is taking a look at compensation, however you possibly can see so many different issues are occurring above and past compensation. We nonetheless have a whole lot of vacationers. Vacationers don’t [know] the neighborhood’s tradition and so they price rather a lot. So if we are able to transfer away from that and transfer into person-centered recruitment and retention, that does rather a lot.”
Ohana Pacific Well being CEO Wesley Lo stated the group has tried to recruit nurses via a number of completely different initiatives. Ohana began a CNA instructional program, in addition to an apprenticeship program, which each resulted in a number of members being employed into skilled positions. However the retention charges had been nil.
“We began a faculty and no one stayed,” Lo stated. “However we realized a lesson. We weren’t figuring out what the actual drawback was. The issue was there have been no LPN colleges. So we began an LPN program as a result of we couldn’t rent LPNs. We can not rely solely on our academic companions. We’re hiring scientific educators.”
Carl Hinson, director of workforce improvement at Hawaii Pacific Well being, stated the corporate is specializing in educating potential staff via highschool applications.
“We’re engaged on entering into the excessive colleges, ensuring these kids have a possibility to find out about turning into a medical assistant or among the different applications,” Hinson stated. “It’s additionally partnering with our Division of Training. We’ve a number of applications in excessive colleges.”
Hawaii Pacific Well being has applications for medical assistants, acute care nursing, phlebotomy, and affected person service representatives, Hinson stated.
“We’ve a program the place senior nursing college students at the moment are going via the equal of a nurse residency and specialty coaching,” he stated. “Once they end that we make use of them instantly as a graduate nurse. They usually’re in a position to work facet by facet with the remainder of our nursing workers.”
The corporate has graduated a complete of 368 college students via applications from 16 collaborating excessive colleges, Hinson stated. Shifting ahead, the corporate is taking a look at increasing to incorporate highschool applications for neighborhood well being work, emergency medical technicians, surgical technologists, ultrasonography, and billing and copay.
Hawaii/Pacific Basin Space Well being Training Heart Director Kelley Withy, MD, stated the group began a brand new mentoring program.
“We began culturally-based mentoring,” Withy stated. “We’re partnering with recruiters and doing something we are able to to get extra suppliers right here, maintain them right here, and maintain them pleased. We’ve had a mortgage reimbursement program for 10 years. It’s half federally funded, and half domestically funded, whether or not by the legislature or philanthropy.”
Reinie Gerrits-Goh, PhD, senior coverage and knowledge analyst for the College of Hawaii’s new Rural Well being Analysis and Coverage Heart, stated the middle is specializing in coverage.
“We had been established in November, so we’re nonetheless very new,” Gerrits-Goh stated. “We’re making an attempt to make coverage occur to service the neighborhood.”
The middle plans to distribute surveys to find out crucial well being wants of rural communities, Gerrits-Goh stated.
