HealthForce Minnesota

Minnesota Hospital Association State Award

Urban Scrubs Camp

Cedar Riverside Partnership/Urban Scrubs Camp received the state healthcare career promotion award for their work with HealthForce Minnesota's Urban Scrubs Camp. Laura Beeth, system director of talent acquisition and chair of the Cedar Riverside Partnership workforce committee submitted the nomination. The award was formally announced at the May 18 state hospital award banquet.

The Cedar Riverside Partnership workforce committee worked with HealthForce Minnesota, Fairview and others to develop Urban Scrubs Camp for high school students.

"It truly takes a village to make Scrubs Camp happen," says Laura Beeth, system director of talent acquisition and chair of the Cedar Riverside Partnership workforce committee. "We devote resources to this effort because hands-on and face-to-face career exploration has a strong impact on students' learning and decision to pursue a field. Scrubs Camp is an important way to generate interest in healthcare disciplines among the Cedar Riverside community and beyond."

At the MHA awards ceremony were (front row): Pam Cosby, executive director of Minnesota Urban Area Health Education Center, left; Regina Pekarek, Fairview workforce development representative; Jane Foote, executive director of HealthForce Minnesota; Laura Beeth, Fairview system director of talent acquisition; Barbara Brandt, professor & associate vice president for education at the Academic Health Center, U of M; (back row) Mike Christenson, associate vice president of workforce development at Minneapolis Community & Technical College; Mark Eustis, Fairview president & CEO; Carolyn Jacobson, Fairview senior director of organizational development & learning; and Louis Smith, Cedar Riverside Partnership.

Nursing: A Favored Landing Spot for Dislocated Workers

By: Tom Robertson, Minnesota Public Radio

Bemidji, Minn. — When five former lumber mill workers graduate Friday from the registered nursing program at Northwest Technical College, their prospects of finding a nursing job won't be as bright as they'd once thought.

Laid off three years ago, the men have been part of a retraining program for dislocated workers. The nursing profession has been a magnet for many unemployed people heading back to school. In Minnesota, registered nurses top the list of high-demand jobs.

Before the lumber mill closed, 56-year-old Curt Peterson never would have guessed he'd be a student again. He said the pace has been grueling.

"It's just been nose to the grindstone," Peterson said. "And you're thinking, 'Oh, will it ever end?' Well, here we are, and it's, 'Oh, my gosh, now we have to get a job.' "

Peterson thought he could ride out the recession in school and come out with a nursing degree that was in high demand. But he's finding there are fewer local job openings than he'd expected. And competition for those jobs may be intense.

Minnesota schools are producing more nursing graduates than ever before. Data from the Minnesota State Colleges and University's system show the number of two-year nursing grads is approaching 2,000 per year, nearly double what it was in 2002.

The number of registered nurses graduating from universities with four-year degrees more than doubled in the same period. People who hire nurses say there's a growing preference to hire baccalaureate-trained nurses over those with two-year associate degrees.

The surge could create a short-term bottleneck for nursing jobs. In the fourth quarter of 2010, the Department of Employment and Economic Development listed just over 1,000 RN job vacancies for people with two- and four-year degrees. That's less than half of what it was five years ago.

Peterson's dream job would be to work at a hospital close to home. He figures a four-year nursing degree might have made him more attractive to employers. As it is, Peterson's job search so far tells him he should leave all options open.

"If I have to, I'll move to get a job," he said. "There are all kinds of jobs for RNs, but they're in Ohio, or Florida or California, or elsewhere. But when you start looking closer to home, the prospects really get a little more narrow."

Nursing is an attractive profession because the need is expected to explode as baby boomers retire. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the country will need a million new or replacement nurses over the next five years.

But something remarkable happened to the nursing profession during the recession. Shortages that had been evident for almost a decade were all but wiped out as retired nurses returned to the workforce. Many nurses who were expected to retire kept working.

The recession dramatically altered the job outlook for nursing, at least for the short term, said Peter Buerhaus, professor of nursing at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

"The jobs will be there, believe me," he said. "It's just right now, today, they're not as widely available as we had expected."

Buerhaus, a leading expert on nursing workforce issues, said his big concern is that nursing schools across the country will pull back on the number of nurses they graduate."We could see a lot of RNs leave the market, and we could be in big, big trouble pretty soon," he said. "So the need to continue to educate nurses is not going away."

In good economic times, nearly 100 percent of RN graduates in Minnesota could expect to be employed within a year of graduation. That number is now closer to 90 percent, according to Minnesota State Colleges and Universities data.

That's still not bad, said Jane Foote, director of HealthForce Minnesota, a workforce-focused collaborative for MnSCU. She said the long-term outlook for nursing is excellent, but graduates need to be flexible.

"I think nursing is still in high demand, but new grads aren't necessarily going right into hospital-based positions full-time, and they're certainly most often not getting daytime hours," she said. "They're working swing shifts and nights."

Observers say hospitals are beginning to hire more nurses. Two years ago there was a net reduction of about 20,000 registered nurses across the country. In 2010, hospitals hired 40,000 new nurses

May 6, 2011

There’s no quick solution to what ails primary care

Primary care doctors are increasingly frustrated and un-happy with burdensome paperwork, long hours and crushing educational lo-ans. If something could be done to improve physician satisfaction, would it help strengthen the fabric of primary care in Minnesota?

By: Anne Polta, West Central Tribune

Primary care doctors are increasingly frustrated and un-happy with burdensome paperwork, long hours and crushing educational lo-ans. If something could be done to improve physician satisfaction, would it help strengthen the fabric of primary care in Minnesota?

The issue was one of several explored Wednesday at a meeting in Willmar to collect input on the state of primary care. Minnesota is one of 25 states awarded a planning grant last year from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration to address the primary care work force.

The goal: to identify strategies for increasing the number of family practice doctors, physician assistants and nurse practitioners by 10 to 25 percent within the next 10 years.

“We’re looking for solutions that are measurable and replicable,” said Rebecca Radcliffe, director of adult initiatives and workforce development with HealthForce Minnesota and project manager for the HRSA grant.

Organizers also are looking for ideas that are innovative, she said. “We’re trying to bring the best thinking possible to the table… There isn’t a one-size-fits-all for how to get this done.”

The outlook for primary care, particularly in rural Minnesota, is not encouraging.

At the same time as the population is aging and requiring more care, primary care providers are getting older as well — and there may not be enough new professionals to replace them. According to figures from the Minnesota Department of Health, the largest concentration of family doctors in southwestern Minnesota is in the 45- to 54-year-old age bracket and many will be contemplating retirement within the next decade. The trends are similar for nurse practitioners.

Meanwhile, fewer medical students are choosing primary care as a career. For many of them, the cost of medical school combined with relatively lower salaries for primary care doctors is driving them into more attractive specialties, said Dr. Kathryn Nelson.

Nelson, of Affiliated Community Medical Centers, has been teaching and mentoring medical students for 14 years. “The cost of health care education is climbing exponentially,” she said. “More and more, finances are playing a part in making the decision for what specialty they will go into.”

Younger physicians entering the work force also increasingly want a life outside medicine, said Julayne Mayer, who works with physician recruitment and medical rotations at ACMC.

Many family doctors are females who want the flexibility of family time and don’t picture themselves working around the clock, she said. “It’s a different mindset.”

Although an increase in nurse practitioners and physician assistants is often seen as one of the solutions for improving access to primary care and removing some of the burden from doctors, participants at the meeting urged caution in singling this out as the answer.

For one thing, these two categories of mid-level professionals require physician supervision, leading to more responsibility and liability for the doctors who oversee them, participants said. For another, it could shift the more complex patients to doctors who are already overworked.

“The satisfaction of physicians is declining,” said Dr. David Newcomer, medical director at ACMC. “What do they tell students that are coming out? Don’t do primary care.”

He added, “I think things have to get worse before they get better.”

Todd Lemke, a pharmacist with the Paynesville Area Health Care System, said that even if more family doctors and mid-level professionals were added to the work force, it wouldn’t solve all the problems facing primary care.

“I think they’re all parts of the bigger puzzle,” he said.

What might help? Meeting participants suggested that more information should be collected on the attitudes of physicians and medical students towards primary care. Survey data could help identify areas where change or improvement might be possible, Nelson suggested.

Working arrangements might need to become more flexible, not just for young physicians but also for older physicians who want to slow down, said Joyce Elkjer, human resources director at Rice Memorial Hospital.

“Maybe we have to be more flexible for some of this expertise to continue,” she said.

Other ideas from the group: evaluating whether trained scribes could help ease the paperwork burden for doctors, and promoting a broader role for public health.

“It’s so easy in health care to be reactive. I’d like to see us turn that around,” Mayer said.

Published February 17, 2011 at wctrib.com