Becker's Hospital Review

74 CMO / CARE DELIVERY Vaccine mandates have hospitals concerned about staffing By Kelly Gooch H ospitals are expressing concerns about potential unintended consequenc- es of COVID-19 mandates, such as exacerbating workforce shortages. President Joe Biden revealed Sept. 9 his ad- ministration's six-pronged approach to curb the pandemic, including requiring all em- ployers with 100 or more employees to ensure their staff are fully vaccinated or undergo weekly COVID-19 testing. Federal officials said the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration will issue an emergency temporary standard to imple- ment the requirement, affecting more than 80 million workers in private sector businesses. President Biden's plan also requires that fed- eral executive branch workers, as well as em- ployees of contractors that do business with the federal government, be vaccinated, with limited medical and religious exemptions. Additionally, CMS will require COVID-19 vaccinations for more than 17 million health- care workers at Medicare- and Medicaid-par- ticipating hospitals and other healthcare set- tings. e requirement applies to hospitals, dialysis facilities, ambulatory surgical settings and home health agencies, the White House said. It expands on the CMS announcement Aug. 18 that nursing homes must have staff vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition for receiving federal funds. Aer President Biden revealed his pan- demic plan, American Hospital Association President and CEO Rick Pollack issued a statement, reiterating support of hospitals implementing vaccine mandates but express- ing concerns about what the federal approach could mean for facilities already grappling with staffing strain. "As a practical matter, this policy may result in exacerbating the severe workforce shortage problems that currently exist," said Mr. Pol- lack. "Consequently, given the critical chal- lenges that we are facing in maintaining the resiliency of our workforce, and dealing with severe shortages, which the American Nurs- es Association has called a national crisis, we call on the administration to work with us as partners in developing aggressive and creative strategies to address this matter to ensure that hospitals and health systems on the front lines of fighting the battle against COVID-19 have the necessary human re- sources to both win this battle and maintain essential health services for the patients and communities we serve." John Henderson, executive director of the Texas Organization for Rural and Commu- nity Hospitals, told the Texas Tribune Sept. 10 that some hospital administrators in Tex- as, where public hospitals have been banned from enacting mandates under Gov. Greg Abbott's executive order, were concerned the federal mandates would cause more staff to retire if they didn't want to get inoculated and were already considering a departure, while others were happy about the move. "I won't say it's been universally applauded or condemned [among the rural hospitals]. Initially it was, 'We're conservative, indepen- dent rural Texans that generally don't like to be told what to do,'" Mr. Henderson told the publication. "is morning I started get- ting more positive reaction. … Most private hospitals in Texas were already requiring it of their staff. You don't want a different standard of public vs. private, and when everybody is in it together and has to jump together, it helps with the nurse staffing musical chairs that we were in some ways expecting." Some healthcare organizations have already seen staff resign because of vaccine mandates, includ- ing Lowville, N.Y.-based Lewis County Health System, which announced in September that it will temporarily close its maternity unit aer 30 people resigned because of New York's vaccine mandate. e state's mandate required health- care workers at hospitals and nursing homes to receive their first vaccine dose by Sept. 27. In Texas, at Houston Methodist, 153 employ- ees either resigned during a two-week suspen- sion period or were terminated June 22 for noncompliance with the system's mandate. While some larger systems may be able to handle a loss of employees, rural hospitals can be substantially affected by such an exo- dus, Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association, told USA Today. He told the newspaper: "Right off the back, vaccines are safe and effective and it's imper- ative that all rural healthcare workforce pro- viders and staff need to be vaccinated. But we also know that there are higher rates of hos- pital workers that are unvaccinated and have no intention of getting vaccinated in the rural context. … is is a significant concern." n 32.6K pharmacy jobs posted in September By Katie Adams A total of 32,659 pharma- cy jobs were posted in September, according to JobRx's monthly report published in October. Here are four things to know about the pharmacy job market: 1. An average of 1,089 pharma- cy jobs were posted each day in September. 2. There were 11,752 pharmacy job postings in the South, 7,584 in the Midwest, 6,465 in the West and 6,144 in the Northeast. 3. There were 13,727 job postings for pharmacists in September. Cal- ifornia had the highest number of pharmacist job postings (1,180), followed by Texas (1,155), Florida (891) and New York (686). 4. There were 16,285 job post- ings for pharmacy technicians in September. Texas had the highest number of pharmacy technician job postings (1,516), followed by Florida (1,092), California (942) and Tennessee (702). n

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