Hospital Leaders Warn Wisconsin's Health Care Workforce Already in "Critical Condition"

Tuesday, May 28th, 2024 -- 12:00 PM

(Hope Kirwan, Wisconsin Public Radio) Hospital industry leaders warn Wisconsin’s health care workforce is already in “critical condition” as the state’s aging population continues to need more care.

According to Hope Kirwan with Wisconsin Public Radio, the Wisconsin Hospital Association’s annual workforce report uses state and federal data, as well as information from the state’s hospitals, to outline the challenges facing the industry.

This year’s report found that 1 in 10 positions at hospitals are vacant, representing almost 10,000 vacancies statewide. Ann Zenk, WHA’s senior vice president of workforce and clinical practice, presented the findings to a bipartisan group of legislators at the state Capitol on Thursday.

She said this year’s findings come after the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Our workforce, which was very critical in 2022, very pressured in 2021, isn’t getting much better,” Zenk told lawmakers. “It’s still in critical condition … If you have a staff of five and one person’s out, you feel that and we’re feeling that in multiple professions in our workforce.”

She said similar to other industries, the worst vacancy rates at hospitals are in frontline technical positions, such as licensed practical nurses, nursing assistants and respiratory therapists. Hospitals are still seeing high rates of employee turnover, a national trend in 2021 and 2022 referred to as “the Great Resignation.”

But Zenk said the new report shows those rates have stabilized instead of continuing to grow. She said the retirement of employees in the Baby Boomer generation represents a much bigger problem for the industry.

“We still have several components of our health care workforce where 1 in 5 or more, for LPNs it’s 1 in 4, are gonna hit retirement soon,” she said. Zenk told lawmakers that the healthcare industry has to find ways to grow the workforce faster to make up for retirements, a challenge facing other industries in the state.

But she said the state’s aging population means hospitals will not be able to grow fast enough to keep up with increasing demand for care. “Age 65 plus far outweighs the demand on health care and health care expenditures,” she said. “So we’ve got growing demands on a shrinking pool of workers.”

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