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Employer Quotes

The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Health Care

They are talking about this topic: Workforce Trends & Challenges

 

The quotes below are about this issue:
Licensed Practical Nurse Shortage: Many employers struggle to fill the huge demand for LPNs. This is especially true in long-term facilities. There is high turnover in LPN positions because a large number quickly pursue an RN degree and then move to other positions. Additionally, many LPNs assume leadership positions—rather than hands-on positions—within long-term care facilities.

Employer Quote Sort descending Region
"Employer 1: There are some periods of time where there are zero applications for LPNs. So, there's a shortage.

Employer 2: So, on the LPNs—zero applications?

Employer 2: At some points.

Employer 2: I would wonder—with the LPNs in that group—how many of those are pursuing their RN degrees?

Employer 1: That was my question, too.

Employer 3: Yeah. I had that.

Employer 1: What we see, too—we're in long-term care and we see the same thing. We might not get LPN applicants, or if we do get an LPN applicant it's someone who is pursuing their RN degree and probably aren't going to stay in that position long-term. I think our program in Alexandria—when I visit with the LPN students—probably 80 to 90 percent are planning to move on to the RN program. So, it's hard to find LPNs that want to remain LPNs."
Northwest
"As health care changes and as senior care changes and we see more of a shift towards community-based care, I guess the concern is that there is a gap in terms of the need for more registered nursing assistants. And, as the other respondent pointed out, there is the issue of reimbursements as well." Southeast
"I discovered yesterday, and I knew it was bad, that the wage difference between acute care and long-term care for an RN is now $30,000 a year. That's impacting who we are getting for applicants. We are also a clinical site for [MnSCU college] Licensed Practical Nursing Program, and we probably had 25 or 30 applicants come in over the last year, students coming in over the last few years. We always meet with them at the end of their clinical experience to see how it's going, and we always ask the question, 'How many of you are planning to go into long-term care after graduation?' And we have yet to have the first hand go up. So, the people that we are getting don't want to be in our world." Central
"I don't know what it's going to take, but we're struggling to find LPNs. They're just not out there. And they're going directly into the RN program, and then going to hospitals, I know we're close to Fargo, and I know a lot of people in our area go to Fargo. So, I don't know what the answer is." Northwest
"I guess for us, even if our LPNs look different, and they are trained differently three years from now than they are now, at least we have LPNs. I was talking to an administrator in another town saying, 'We're not able to admit residents at this time because we don't have the staff to care for them.' And I don't want that to happen in Bemidji. I don't want our region to face those situations three years from now or ten years from now." Northwest
"I hire a lot of LPNs." Northeast
"I think that's one of the things maybe the colleges could help with—in terms of identifying who may have an interest in long-term care nursing. It really is changing. It's not, you know, the traditional setting of the 1970s. It's sub-acute. It's like a medical-surgical unit. It's fast-paced. We need someone who can multi-task and who can be very organized. In terms of the colleges, they could offer more or suggest more people go into long-term care for their preceptorship. Or encourage people to look at that as a possible career, not just as a stepping stone." Metro
"I think when you talked about doing clinicals in nursing homes, one of the nursing homes—we are a clinical site—but we were one of the last ones to be chosen. They want to go to obstetrics or they want to go to pediatrics. So, I think that's part of the issue, we are not the glamorous part of the medical field or the nursing field. The attitude seems to be, 'Well, I could just get a job at a nursing home, or I can get a job in home care.' So, they do that for a while until they can get something else. I think there should be some more emphasis in the training that they need to have, not that they choose to have. Because sooner or later they are going to end up working with some type of elderly or chronic population. And I think that, like I said, we are not the first choice to do the clinicals. We get a few, but not many, and usually it's somebody who's worked prior as a student." Central
"I'm not really finding LPNs, and I've got locations in southern Minnesota. I attend all the college fairs. I go to the classroom. I do mock interviews. I do whatever I can to get my face in front of them, and then they tell me they want to continue on to be an RN." Metro
"I've had an ad out now for seven months for an LPN with no hits. We decided we needed LPNs but we can't find them, so we'll go to all RNs. I put out an ad for an RN, and I got four in one day. But when they find out what the job entails, it's not glamorous enough. They don't want to do what an LPN does. And so we're stuck between a rock and a hard place because I need LPNs, but I can't get an RN to do what they do." Northwest
"In our business sector, in senior services, we're not seen as a glamorous place to work. And often senior services organizations aren't able to pay the same rate that some acute organizations will. We're fortunate in being part of a non-profit health organization. But when I hear from other organizations, often you can see quite a gap between what a long-term care facility can offer versus the acute side. The other issue is whether you're considered urban or rural because those areas are paid differently by the state. You don't make that decision yourself about what you reimburse. So, those constraints are really a problem for people. Even being able to pay—even if they would like to pay their staff more—often they just can't in a rural organization versus an urban organization. Here in Winona, we are reimbursed less from the state than we would be in Rochester because Rochester is considered urban. So, those are challenges that we have behind the scenes in terms of attracting people. And that is eventually going to really be a challenge for the future. Because you certainly know that we're probably going to serve institutionally—we're going to serve them in the community—but we still need people available to do that. So, we're going to have to figure out how we're going to face those challenges in going forward and still figure out our model of care. We're changing a lot of that. But how are we going to pay them competitively in order to make that work?" Southeast
"It sounds like there's a big demand in Bemidji for LPNs who are in northern Minnesota here. So, if there's a big demand for LPNs, there are maybe other programs with MnSCU—maybe that's the thing to take to MnSCU—that the other programs will have to ramp up there." Northwest
"It's nice with our nursing assistants. They come and do the clinicals in our nursing home, and so they get that feel for it already. I don't know if the RNs or LPNs do clinicals in a nursing home. They often use the nursing home as their stepping stone. They can get a job there, it's their first job, and as soon as they have that experience, they move on to the hospitals or the clinics where the pay is better and the hours are better. So, we get a lot of the new graduates. We are kind of a training field; we're their clinical training field to move on to something else. So, it would be nice if they did some of their clinical studies in a nursing home instead of walking into us kind of unprepared. We have our best success with the ones that we grow ourselves, our nursing assistants, and our LPNs. And we've paid for all of their tuition, and their books, and their fees to go on to their next step. And they have that background already in the long-term care." Central
"Long-term care, I think, represented over half the folks that attended these meetings, which was delightful because the data now is going to reflect a more broad-based acute and older adult services perspective." Southeast
"Maybe we need to actually promote what an LPN does. Because we have surveyed our students, and none of them want to be LPNs. They go through the program because it's the only option there. So, it's one of those really tough things. It used to be that—when I went through the LPN program, I wanted to be an LPN. So, things have changed. But there's certainly not the promotion there that we see for other health care fields. So, what's it like being an LPN? What's the great part about giving individualized care and having an opportunity to see what they do at long-term care facilities? It means you get to be connected with people. I think that the whole promotion of that career has been lost." Northwest
"Nurse practitioners are in high demand right now, and we struggle with that." Southeast
"Personally, we don't see a lot of issues with hiring RNs, it's LPNs that are more difficult to find. Is there data on how many LPNs keep going with their education? Because that's the biggest issue—we can keep an LPN for a little bit of time while they're planning to become an RN or are actually in school to be an RN. But I no longer see LPNs that want it to be a career. And, so, in the nursing homes we really struggle with keeping LPNs because a lot of people go on with their education, which is great, but we can't afford to have a floor full of RNs." Central
"There are some areas—including senior services—where it's a little bit more difficult to attract in general across the field." Southeast
"They're not going to sit for the boards or whatever, so in skilled nursing and long-term care, we need the LPNs, and I'm not finding grads. Our St. Paul location's doing okay, but..." Metro
"We can't—we're not funded so that we can pay our licensed nurses what they can get paid in a hospital. Sometimes I hear that it's upwards of ten dollars an hour difference. So, that's what we struggle with in long-term care." Northwest
"We have 20 LPNs and all but one have graduated from the [MnSCU college] Licensed Practical Nursing Program. What I see happening at our long-term care facility is that they work as a CNA while they're going to LPN school. And then they are an LPN while they're going into the RN program. And maybe they complete that in a year or two. So, I see good solid staff for three to four years which is huge in this industry—there's not the staff turnover like a lot of people see." Northwest
"We talk about nursing homes changing and the need for higher skills. You know, we see that all the time. But residents coming into our facility need a skill level that is more applicable to an RN, but you cannot necessarily afford the RN wages all the time, so the RNs are going to hospitals." Northwest
"What we've found is that people are graduating with the practical nursing, and then pursuing their RN degree quickly. So, the turnover and replacement is pretty frequent in our long-term care home health care setting with the LPN. That's where we've seen challenges. That's great career growth for the individual, but just a challenge from the employer perspective." Southeast
"You know, I've been a CNA, an LPN, and an RN. And it's hard work working in a nursing home. Yeah, maybe it's not as glamorous as an emergency room or whatever. But you deal with some complex cases, and you can actually build some excellent skills. But I don't think it's being sold in programs—it's not portrayed as a glamorous place to work. But we do wonderful things to extend the lives of the elderly population, and nobody wants to do it. Because I don't think it's—I don't know if it's seen as just not good enough for a lot of the people who are coming out of colleges?" Northwest