Employer Quotes

The quotes below are about this issue:
General Workforce Shortage: Many employers are having difficulty filling positions, particularly for LPNs, advanced practice and specialty, and clinical lab careers.

Employer Quote	Region
"From our long-term care perspective, the minimum data set coordinator is a critical role for us. The MDS folks make sure our charting is where it needs to be to maximize reimbursement and make sure we are taking advantage of everything that we can capture."	Southeast
"I think about lab—you know, the different categories that are there. We might have one person or a half-time person that does blood bank, for example, or the cytologist or some of those kinds of things. So, there are a few that can be more difficult to find. And sometimes you don't even have a whole full-time position. So, as a smaller institution, those would be some of our struggles. And then does somebody have that skill set in our community? Or where would they get it? So, at the moment, we're not looking for those positions, but those would be things in the backs of our heads that we would be trying to figure out. And I think our solution would typically be to consider who, internally, we could train to get that skill set and incorporate it somehow in a position. So, there are some challenges in the smaller organization for really specialized roles."	Southeast
"I think this fluctuates, but certainly nursing assistants can be difficult to find at times."	Southeast
"I'd like to speak for the retirement community business based upon conversations I've had with fellow CEOs and administrators. We're challenged at this point. It's comforting to hear that we're putting a lot of grads out, but we're challenged to find and retain nurses. In the rural areas, it's even more significant of a problem to find them. I hear stories—and these are national stories—where very bright kids can't get into nursing school because they only allow so many in. And there are shortages of instructors. There are reasons for that occurring, but it's pretty challenging right now, at least in our region down here in southeast Minnesota and above as well. I don't want to cause too much alarm, but I want to share that there are some pretty significant difficulties going on in our industry."	Southeast
"Medical coding has become a challenge for us. In particular, there is a specific coding language—and I don't remember what the actual term is off-the-top-of-my-head—but that's a big challenge right now. We're looking all over the nation for the right coders to meet the needs that we have right now. We're even exploring opportunities where people could work at home and telework, so that they don't have to move from California to Rochester."	Southeast
"Nurse practitioners, that's a high demand area right now and we struggle with that."	Southeast
"Our NP and PA populations have expanded almost exponentially over the last couple of years. We have them in every setting. They're in our ED, inpatient, senior services, home care hospice, long-term care, clinics, surgery—you know, pretty much across the board. And we've been fortunate to get a lot of really good individuals for that. I think that's the population that isn't yet—I mean it's relatively new. Everybody's going after them. The issue is really more about—because you can't get doctors—that becomes the next level. So right now, there is a lot going into those programs and we seem to be able to recruit for that from the upper-midwest of the state."	Southeast
"There are some areas—including senior services—where it's a little bit more difficult to attract in general across the field."	Southeast
"There's also the need for occupational therapists, speech therapists, and physical therapists. Question: You think you'll be short on those? Employer: In the future."	Southeast
"Those are probably the hottest positions that we're trying to recruit for¿NPs and PAs. We grew by nearly half in the last seven years. We're at nearly five hundred NP positions. We anticipate the next year being equal as far as our hiring. Last year, we filled 140 positions. That's transfers and internal shuffles, too, but also a lot of new grads. I think we were hiring about 90, which is astronomical really. We anticipate, over the next few years, that that will be the number one thing. In regards to that, the things we're looking for are individuals who can make that jump from an RN to an advance practitioner, and see their own patients. We struggle a bit with that piece."	Southeast
"We don't have enough doctors, and we don't have enough NPs and PAs to deal with what's hitting the systems now. So, we have to ask, 'How can we meet people's needs in a different way?' This isn't a matter of even getting them through the schools and things like that, there's just simply not enough."	Southeast
"What we've found is that people are graduating with the practical nursing, and then pursuing their RN 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