What Do Workforce Issues Have To Do With Patient Safety Can You Help Control Some Health Care Costs

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What Do Workforce Issues Have To Do With Patient
Safety? Can You Help Control Some Health Care
Costs by Improving Patient Safety?

• Ed Salsberg, M.P.A.
• Executive Director
• Center For Health Workforce Studies
• School of Public Health
• Univeristy of Albany,-SUNY
• Rensselaer, NY

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The Health Workforce A Basic Premise

• Health workers are cornerstone of the health care
  delivery system
• Health care system is only as good as its
  workforce
• Workforce directly affects quality, cost and
  access
• System wide high turnover, difficulty recruiting,
  worker dissatisfaction are signs of a systemic
  problem

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How Health Workforce Issues Affect Patient Safety

• Health workforce shortages
• Basic education and training
• Continuing professional education
• Supervision and feedback
• Job Satisfaction
• Turnover and retention
• Job design
• Inadequate information systems
• Lack of diversity

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Addressing Workforce Issues That Impact Patient
Care

• Assure an adequate supply of workers
• Create a work environment responsive to the
  workforce Listen to workers
• Provide feedback to workers on their performance
• Assure appropriate education and continuing
  education
• Design jobs to meet worker needs
• Invest in information systems
• Support for training of managers and supervisors

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Workforce Shortages Affect Many Professions

• Nurses, nurse aides, home health aides, lab
  workers, rad techs, pharmacists, dentists, and
  more
• Hospitals nursing homes, home health agencies
• Urban, rural and suburban areas

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How Health Workforce Shortages Affect Patient
Safety

• Stress and burnout
• Rushed care and less attention to individual
  patient needs
• Use of temporary staff with less knowledge of
  facility, other staff and patients
• Turnover and loss of expertise and knowledge
• Substitution of less qualified workers

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Factors Contributing to Health Workforce Shortages

• Short term factors
• Competition for workers
• Educational system response lags
• Long Term factors
• Increase in demand due to aging of nation,
  growing wealth and new interventions
• Aging of workforce
• Changing racial/ethnic mix
• Career choices for women
• Workplace factors
• Physically and emotionally demanding work
• Non-competitive wages and benefits
• Job design, working conditions and paperwork
• Poorly trained managers

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States Responses to Health Worker Shortages
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In Our Hands-How Hospital Leaders Can Build a
Thriving Workforce April 2002

• Recommendations from AHA Commission on the
  Workforce for Hospitals and Health Systems
• Foster Meaningful Work
• Improve the Workplace Partnership
• Broaden the Base
• Collaborate with Others
• Build Societal Support

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Crisis as Opportunity

• Better quality of care
• Adequate supply of health workers
• Increased worker satisfaction
• More effective delivery system
• More cost effective care
• Information systems that work
• More culturally diverse workforce
• Increased enrollment in health professions schools