In the News

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PBS Newshour

Question: As a health care professional, I’m fed up with the “talent shortage.” If there’s a shortage, why do nurses like me also work as waitresses, and make more than we could make nursing, which I’m certified in? I also have a college degree, because I was told it was a necessity to compete today. One interview after another is a waste of time, with HR telling me I look good and to expect a callback that never comes. I got a couple of actual offers and one contract assignment, but I could walk dogs and make more. Hospitals just wait for somebody who will work for peanuts. And they are rude. My dream was to build a good career as a nurse and to get paid. Does anybody want to hire a registered nurse for a living wage?

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PewTrusts.org

HOUSTON — The skyscrapers at the Texas Medical Center are filled with hospital beds. The commuters waiting in the heat for the train wear scrubs. The young woman dodging traffic on a bicycle may be studying to be a doctor, a nurse or a dentist. Houston is known for its energy jobs, but registered nurses are the most in-demand workers in town. “Whatever jobs we have, we keep expanding. And our competitors are doing the same,” said Thomas Vernon, a human resources director for Houston Methodist, which has a large hospital at the medical complex here. Last year the health system hired about 1,200 nurses across its seven hospitals.

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FierceHealthcare.com

In theory it should be easy for hospitals and health systems to hire nurses. Despite a shortage of nurses in the health workforce, there is a growing pool of potential candidates to fill open slots. Yet it can take healthcare organizations as long as 50 days to hire a registered nurse. There are several reasons for the hiring delays, according to an article from The Pew Charitable Trusts. Many hospitals and healthcare systems seek out nursing job applicants with a bachelor’s degree or other advanced degrees, as well as work experience. Yet in some states, many nurses entering the workforce may need only their nursing license to apply for jobs. In states like New York, for instance, registered nurses outnumber the available positions, so providers have raised the bar and now require a bachelor’s degree, as Jean Moore, director of the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University of Albany, told Pew.

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Crain’s New York Business

Dr. Jaime Nieto’s childhood idol wasn’t an athlete or a comic-book superhero. As a boy growing up in the Andean town of Chiquinquirá, Colombia, he most wanted to emulate the local doctor, the only one for 40,000 residents.

“He was the guy who would take out your teeth or your appendix, treat your blood pressure and deliver your babies. He was an icon. He was respected in a way that no one else was,” Nieto recalled.

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Lexington Herald Leader

FRANKFORT – The oral health of Kentucky’s school children is worsening, even though more of them are covered by dental insurance today than 15 years ago.

A new report was presented Wednesday to the state’s legislature’s Interim Health and Welfare Committee, following on an earlier statewide study conducted in 2001. The report’s authors found that 41 percent of third- and sixth-graders surveyed by a dentist had at least one untreated cavity. In Eastern Kentucky, that figure rose to 53 percent, amounting to about 15,100 children in immediate need of a filling.

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HealthNewsDigest.com

ALBANY, N.Y. (October 12, 2016) —  Fewer nurse practitioners practice per capita in downstate New York compared to upstate, a recent study conducted by the University at Albany’s Center for Health Workforce Studies (CHWS) finds.

In addition, more than 75 percent of certified nurse practitioners (NPs) in New York State are actively practicing as NPs, while another 14 percent work as registered nurses.

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Lohud – The Journal News

You may want to consider acting on that toothache you’ve been ignoring for six months, or soon the soreness in the back of your mouth could be compounded by a new headache: Finding a dentist. According to a report from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, New York state may face a shortage of dentists as early as 2025, as demand is expected to far outpace supply, with 1,024 fewer full-time dentists than needed. This is expected to become the third highest state shortage in the country.

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Times Telegram

A new community health center is offering Herkimer County residents another place to turn for medical care. Valley Family Health Center, at 55 Central Plaza, Suite B in Ilion, started seeing patients part time in May and is hosting a formal ribbon cutting at noon Tuesday. The federally qualified community health center offers primary care and women’s health services.

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Utica Observer-Dispatch

It’s a fact of rural life: Sick children and their families often need to travel to see the specialists who can treat them. Youngsters with complex asthma who face frequent emergency room visits and hospital admissions need to see a pediatric pulmonologist and not just a pediatrician or family doctor, said Dr. Kris Kjolhede, co-director of the Bassett Healthcare Network’s School-Based Health Program.

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Democrat & Chronicle

We are still human, despite the high technology that increasingly shapes our lives and — we hope — our region’s economic development. So, even as photonics and other mind-blowing industries emerge, we go on aging, falling ill, getting injured, and requiring the kind of care only a human can provide. Health care workers, such as certified nursing assistants, will continue to be in high demand. In fact, the Center for Health Workforce Studies predicts New York will need more than 260,000 new nursing assistants between 2014 and 2024, and another 337,000 to fill existing positions as people leave for retirement or other reasons.

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