Memorial expansion to amplify nursing shortage
EDITOR’S NOTE: To hear audio of a Chattanooga Times Free Press editorial board meeting with Memorial Hospital officials, including Chief Executive Officer Ruth Brinkley, visit www .tfponline.com.
Memorial Hospital officials’ recent announcement that they would embark on a five-year, $320 million building project came with another big number: 700 new jobs.
Hospital executives said they do not have a precise breakdown of the jobs, but some will be nurses. Despite a nationwide nursing shortage that is predicted to get worse, they said they are ready to do what it takes to fill the spots, including recruiting outside the region.
“We have very good programs in place to ensure that we have an adequate pipeline,” Memorial Chief Executive Officer Ruth Brinkley said.
The estimate of 700 new jobs is a 10-year projection based on the hospital’s current growth rate of about 3 percent a year, Memorial Chief Financial Offi
cer Carol Newton said.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated in February 2004 that by 2012 the nation will require 1 million new nurses.
According to Tennessee Center for Nursing projections, the demand for nurses in the state is likely to reach 60,432 by 2020, with only 45,928 nurses to fill the jobs, which is a 24 percent shortfall. The group’s figures show the state now has a few hundred more nurses than it needs, but that situation is expected to be reversed by 2008.
Dr. Barbara James, dean of the nursing school at Southern Adventist University, said she would be worried if she was a hospital executive planning an expansion. Nursing shortages have not been severe locally, but there’s good reason to expect a problem in the next few years, she said.
“Anyone looking at an expansion, that means a lot more nurses than they currently have,” Dr. Barbara James said.
Ms. Brinkley said Business Tennessee magazine ranks Memorial among the 20 best employers to work for in Tennessee. The nursing vacancy rate is 3 percent to 5 percent at Memorial.
Lisa Whaley, vice president of human resources at Memorial, said the hospital and its subsidiary Mountain Management, a physician practice management and staffing agency, employ 3,815 people.
Hospital spokeswoman Karen Sloan said that number includes 850 registered nurses who work at the hospital and 40 who work for Mountain Management.
“We’re in a really good position, and we have been for the last several years,” she said. “Then, as we have a new and exciting facility, we think that will be a natural attraction.”
Other hospitals have begun preparing for the nursing shortage expected to develop over the next decade.
HCA Inc., the Brentwood, Tenn.-based parent company of Parkridge Medical Center, has several programs in place to help address current and anticipated staffing shortages, said Donna Yurdin, assistant vice president for organizational effectiveness at HCA.
The company, which operates about 180 hospitals in 21 states, employs about 180,000 people and 60,000 nurses, Ms. Yurdin said.
HCA has its own staffing service that recruits nurses locally and from overseas, she said.
The company also cooperates with colleges and high schools and middle schools to encourage young people to enter health care professions, Ms. Yurdin said.
“It takes all these things together trying to address the shortage without just being satisfied that we can steal them from each other,” she said. “That’s not going to solve the problem.”
Erlanger Human Resources Vice President Gregg Gentry said Chattanooga and Erlanger have been lucky not to see as bad a shortage in health care
workers as some other parts of the country.
“It’s kind of difficult to absolutely have a crystal ball, but 2010 forward is where I would be concerned,” Mr. Gentry said.
Educators across the region said the nursing shortage is not as acute here as it is in other parts of the country.
“I’m not sure that if I could turn out twice as many nurses that we could use them all,” said Denise Grant, assistant dean of health sciences at Northwestern Technical College in Rock Spring, Ga.
Dr. Martina Harris, a professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, said there is a shortage of people with advanced degrees who are qualified to teach nursing.
“We just don’t have the faculty to accommodate all the students,” said Dr. Harris.
According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, nearly 33,000 qualified applicants were turned away from nursing schools across the country in 2004 because of a shortage of faculty, training sites and classroom space
and because of financial limitations.
Dr. Howard Yarbrough, dean of nursing and allied health at Chattanooga State Technical Community College, said the college offers degrees in a long list of health professions.
“We are positioning ourselves to meet any shortage which does develop,” he said.