TEMPLE, TX – The effects of the nursing shortage on outpatient centers are similar to those on hospitals, but clinics are at a disadvantage as they compete for the same nursing supply with hospitals.
Glen Couchman, MD, chairman of Scott & White Family Medicine, said clinics can’t always offer nurses as much as hospitals can.
“We’ve lost nurses from our outpatient setting back into the hospitals,” he said. “There is some deal where they work 36 hours in four or five days and stay in a hotel and then fly home. (Hospitals) are doing some creative things with scheduling to entice people back into the hospital environment.”
The level of patient acuity is much greater in the hospital than in outpatient centers, Couchman said, so it’s reasonable for hospital nurses to get more money. Nonetheless, clinics need to keep nurses’ wages competitive so the gap between outpatient and hospital nurses’ pay isn’t too great, he said.
“When you get a real big discrepancy, it’s that much harder to keep them in the outpatient setting,” he said. “Any time you increase that turnover rate, you get people who are less experienced.”
The shortage, specifically among the nation’s supply of registered nurses, has made it increasingly difficult for clinics to retain nurses who have more extensive experience and education. To keep their nurse staffing levels up, Scott & White Family Medicine has been hiring licensed vocational nurses.
“We can meet all the legal requirements by using LVNs,” Couchman said. “But RNs tend to have a little more experience and depth of knowledge.”
Additionally, he said, the shortage means it takes longer to find replacement nurses, and as a result, clinics often have to make do with fewer nurses. “That results in a more harried, more frenzied work environment for those who are there,” he said.
Couchman said the solution is multi-faceted, and includes measures such as keeping a close wage gap and lessening administrative tasks. “Part of it is allowing nurses to do the kind of work they want to do,” he said. Some nurses like the continuity of the relationship with the patient that they experience in outpatient centers, he added.