James March-April 2024 online - Flipbook - Page 71
t was the middle of the pandemic when
the hospital’s CEO asked me to recruit
nurses for our hospital system. The
pandemic was taking its toll on our
organization like it had on every other
hospital. During the pandemic, our hospital had manufactured our disposable
gowns and anti-viral wipes when supply
lines collapsed. Could we manufacture
nurses? Not by ourselves. What could we do? We decided
to figure it out (“FIO”).
We met with our local technical college to see how
they might help. The result was a collaborative effort to
solve the tech school’s problems of lack of space and faculty while addressing our problem of hundreds of open
nursing positions. This partnership moved our technical
college’s allied health science campus to the hospital
grounds, and the hospital agreed to pay additional
faculty salaries. We launched in January of 2023, and
by December of 2023 the hospital grew from zero hires
from the technical college’s nursing program to having 48
signed-on with work agreements.
Such innovative partnerships in Georgia are a solid
step in the right direction, but they are insufficient.
There is a nursing workforce shortage across the state.
Georgia can and must do better. Gov. Brian Kemp has
led a successful effort to make Georgia the best state for
businesses to locate. Yet it does not lead the country when
it comes to having an adequate healthcare workforce,
particularly when it comes to doctors and nurses. Georgia
ranks 41st in the country for supply of nurses. We also
rank 41st when it comes to active physician supply.
USG Chancellor Sonny Perdue has said that healthcare is as integral to the quality of life as education, jobs,
and housing are. To FIO it will take a collaborative effort,
and hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes will have to be
part of the solution in concert with the academic engines
that produce the talent that Georgia needs to care for
its citizens. What could that look like? In January, the
governor announced an effort to build a new medical
school for UGA and a new dental college for Savannah.
These can play an important role when they are finally
accredited and up and running. But in the meantime,
what immediate action steps can we take as a state to
improve the healthcare workforce shortage? Georgia is at
a crossroads. It can take the road that retains more physicians and nurses for our state, or it can educate more
healthcare workforce for other states.
It will take our hospitals and practitioners to work
with our educators to ensure nurses don’t quickly leave the
profession when the pay, culture, or clinical setting is not
what they hoped. Georgia can FIO and successfully address
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