nursing shortage

Florida Hospital Association president Mary Mayhew says staff having to isolate due to the virus and workers taking lucrative travel jobs are posing challenges for hospitals amid the omicron surge.

Montana's largest hospital recently signed employment contracts with two dozen foreign nurses. Nationwide, a backlog of 5,000 international nurses await approval to enter the U.S.

Health News Florida and WUSF are reporting on staffing shortages in nursing homes and assisted living facilities and would like to hear from you.

Groups representing nursing homes, hospitals, assisted living facilities and home health providers detail issues such as nurse and CNA shortages and a lack of nursing faculty and student slots at colleges.

The program will train existing nurses to overcome burnout caused by COVID-19 while developing a pipeline for new nurses to join the hospital.

Across the country, hospitals are desperate for RNs and specialty nurses. Yet, paradoxically, the nursing pipeline has slowed, with educators retiring or returning to clinical work themselves.

In advance of the 2022 legislative session, lawmakers eye ways to bolster education and training programs for nurses and other health professionals to help alleviate industry-wide staffing woes.

In areas overwhelmed by COVID cases, hospitals must rely on traveling nurses to operate ICUs. Hospitals pay a premium for that temporary help, while also struggling to keep their staff nurses happy.

Florida health officials say the number of COVID cases is continuing to trend down, but the president and CEO of the Florida Hospital Association tells legislators that staffing concerns remain.

Although COVID pushed many medical professionals to decide to leave the field, medical schools at USF, FSU and UCF saw applicant pools increase by around 1,000 people for the 2021 academic year.