x
Breaking News
More () »

New report calls health care workforce shortage "alarming"

The Minnesota Hospital Association reports 9,823 open positions in hospitals and health systems.

ST PAUL, Minn. — New data from the Minnesota Hospital Association (MHA) shows the immense challenges that hospitals are facing all across the state.

Its 2022 workforce report found there are nearly 10,000 open positions, fewer full-time workers and rising supply costs.

MHA says what's happening "is nothing short of alarming" and begs the question, can hospitals continue all the services we're used to having?

"It's startling data, that's for sure," said MHA's Senior Director of Communications Lou Ann Olson.

Olson says the information over the last year is from about 77,000 workers across 97 facilities that, in part, highlights a severe staffing crisis, among other challenges. 

"We're now at 21% open positions in hospitals and health systems and it was 6% at this time last year," said Olson, which is some nearly 10,000 job openings - the highest since reporting started four years ago. 

The report also found that employees who work somewhere less than five years have the highest rate of turnover. 

"Some of it's retirement, some of it's moving on to other positions in health care; whatever it is we're at this juncture where we need to step in and impact the situation," said Olson.

"Short term, lots of innovations are in process," said Olson to KARE 11's Jennifer Hoff. "We're working with legislators to try and get them to help us with effecting the government reimbursement rates." 

"Longer term, we're working on programs to get more students interested in the health care field," Olson continued. "How do we attract them through scholarships and innovative programs at an earlier age so that they can experience some of these positions when they're in high school or even before?"

The numbers also point to more people who prefer not to work 40 hours a week. Overall, 44% of hospital workers aren't working full-time. Plus, there's an aging workforce and retirements, most of which happened during the height of the pandemic.

"A hospital has to be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and we can't be part time," said Olson. "So while we're proud to be offering part-time options for many in health care, it does make it more challenging to fill the organizational needs."

Despite the decrease, hospitals did hire about 11,000 new employees this past year, as well as increased their BIPOC representation by nearly 140% since 2016.

But is it enough?

"We learned a lot about care delivery during the pandemic and ended up being innovative about it and I would say we're continuing those innovations and finding new ways to continue delivering care in a high quality way to our patients who come, but we do need to be mindful about changing the trajectory of these trends so that can continue," said Olson.

The MHA says it's also put together a special committee to identify four priority areas. It says it's a collection of research and evidence-based best practices to help hospitals develop improvement programs. The ideas, while in a pilot phase, should be finalized by the end of the year. 

Watch more local news:

Watch the latest local news from the Twin Cities in our YouTube playlist:

Before You Leave, Check This Out