The hundreds of healthcare human resources executives who traveled to Tampa last month weren’t there for the sun, but for business.
That business, in the form of the 46th annual conference and exhibition for the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration, focused on how HR execs are dealing with healthcare reform.
“We need to know, we need to be invested and we need to be part of that debate on healthcare reform,” said K. Bruce Stickler, a partner in the Chicago-based law firm of Drinker Biddle who led a “Health Care HR Hot Topic” panel session during the first day of the three-day conference.
Stickler and fellow law partners Stephanie Dodge Gournis and Mark D. Nelson outlined a number of issues facing healthcare HR executives now and in the near future. They include compliance, wage/hour issues, nursing union organizations, labor issues and social networking.
Gournis said the healthcare industry “has been put on warning” by the U.S. Department of Labor, which is targeting the industry with compliance audits. The past philosophy of “deal with it, cross our fingers and hope it goes away” won’t work at a time when DOL investigators have vowed to get tough on non-compliance, she said.
Nelson touched upon the growing issue of unionization in the nursing force, pointing out that unions won 70 percent of the unionization votes held last year, bringing the total number of nurses under collective bargaining agreements to at least 165,000. He urged HR executives to take a good look at the issues faced by their nurses to determine if unionization might gain a foothold.
“The only time to have a dialogue with your (nurses) is before you get a petition,” he pointed out.
One ASSHRA panel session focused on challenges in maintaining a steady workforce. Debra Stock, vice president of member relations for the American Hospital Association, predicted the market for qualified workers “is going to get very competitive” as the workforce shortage runs head-on into an aging population in need of more healthcare services.
“We have to be frank about the fact that we are simply not going to have enough (healthcare employees) going forward,” she said.
Jeanene Martin, senior vice president of HR at WakeMed Health & Hospitals in Raleigh, N.C., and a former ASHHRA president, said healthcare reform will greatly affect how providers hire new employees. Gone are the days, she said, when hospitals rewarded effort (rather than outcomes) and set high starting salary levels to attract top talent.
“One of the real focuses in going to be on work redesign,” she said.
Dan Zuhlke, vice president of HR at Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City and another former ASHHRA president, pointed out that the changing healthcare reimbursement landscape means providers will be focusing on quality – and rewarding or penalizing on that issue.
“Not only do we have to hold people accountable, but it really has to have a consequence,” he said.