Workforce study shows the need for medical staff in West Virginia

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A recent workforce study is showing the state’s largest segment of healthcare has come face-to-face with multiple converging factors that’s heightening its staffing shortages.

New data shows more than 49,000 caregivers are employed by West Virginia hospitals and the West Virginia Hospital Association recently launched the 2023 Healthcare Workforce Report, which not only presents the challenges of the hospital workforce shortages but the opportunities to potentially resolve it.

WVHA President Jim Kaufman came on MetroNews Talkline Wednesday to first discuss the key findings behind the study that have exacerbated these staffing shortages.

Kaufman said the study found that declining college enrollment, increased burnout, an aging workforce with less people entering healthcare fields overall, and the effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic have all contributed to the problem.

However, another major part of the problem Kaufman said is the significantly less pay West Virginia healthcare workers make as opposed to healthcare workers in other states.

“One of the biggest challenges we also have is keeping those healthcare workers here in West Virginia, because we know we pay less than the national average,” said Kaufman. “When I was looking at some numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for some of these key positions in this report were anywhere from 10 to 20% below the national average.”

According to the study, West Virginia hospitals spend an estimated $97 million to help cover the cost of vacancies, including recruiting and retaining medical staff. It also helps to cover funding for the increasing travel costs of traveling nurses, who have recently been widely used to help alleviate these vacancies.

“The hospitals are in this sort of catch 22 of how do you make sure that you have the staff that you need to take care of the patients when you know there are vacancy rates, and I know travelers are receiving a lot of attention, and it’s almost a catch 22, because if you don’t use travelers, you burn out your staff faster, but then to recruit and get those travelers from across the country, you have to pay more,” said Kaufman.

The increased demand for travel nurses comes as a direct result of the need for local nurses, including RNs and LPNs, who have the single highest turnover rate at 42.9%.

“That’s a huge burden that we’re looking at and how do we try to get that down, and there are a lot of opportunities that we can try to shift back to more house staff versus travelers,” he said.

However, Kaufman said these vacancies are not just limited to nurses, but diagnostic imagery and medical laboratory professionals who run X-rays, CT scanners, MRI machines and aid in the delivery of medications when radiation is needed, among the need for other hospital workers.

“What’s important to note is that there are a lot of positions critical to the hospital not included in this report, like environmental services, nutrition services, 24 hours a day 7 days a week so we can keep the facilities clean and operational, and we need to feed not just our staff but our patients,” he said.

Respiratory therapy was yet another major vacancy listed in the report, however, and one which saw a vastly increased demand during Covid, as workers were needed to be able to operate ventilators.

Kaufman said, according to the study, these vacancies and turnover rates in hospitals can not only lead to a negative impact on healthcare spending, but the quality of care and patient safety and satisfaction.

However, he said solutions to address these problems are being taken into account, an effort that is extending beyond the healthcare realm and into the hands of colleges, lawmakers and other parts of the community.

“That’s why the hospitals are looking across the board, how do we work with the community, higher ed, K to 12, policymakers, to address these vacancy rates and improve access to care for all of West Virginia,” said Kaufman.

Kaufman said recent efforts from West Virginia lawmakers to add healthcare workforce initiatives into policy making decisions has helped alleviate some of the strain.

Governor Jim Justice and his administration’s efforts is just one example of such outreach, as they recently launched the second round of investments to the Nursing Workforce Expansion Initiative. An initiative that was originally launched in 2021 with an initial investment of $48 million towards the recruitment and retention of nursing staff, and another $20 million has gone to the effort since then.

West Virginia hospitals are licensed for a total of 6,441 acute care beds but currently can only staff approximately 4,800 beds, the study finds, and while it’s also finding that the shortages are not showing any signs of decreasing overtime, continued strategic investments and recalibration can help alleviate the problem.