Latest news with #nursingShortage
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Hochul, McDonald frustrated with state Education Department, legislature for stonewalling bills they say would save healthcare providers money
Jul. 17—ALBANY — As hospitals across New York and the nation face the possibility of steep revenue drops thanks to federal Medicaid cuts, Governor Kathleen C. Hochul and the state health commissioner are expressing frustration that the state's Department of Education and legislature aren't signing on to a plan that could cut costs for some health care operators and address the state's nursing shortage. In the Capitol on Thursday, Gov. Hochul and most of her cabinet of state agency and department directors spoke with reporters about the anticipated impacts of the federal budget cuts included in the "One Big Beautiful Bill" signed into law earlier this month. As they discussed concerns over potential challenges for rural hospitals, Hochul and Health Commissioner Dr. James V. McDonald said they were frustrated that New York hasn't been able to make changes to the rules over what licensed medical professionals can and cannot do, and said existing state law just isn't the right fit. State officials have been sounding the alarm for months as Republicans built the federal spending bill and debated it. They've warned that the impacts of Medicaid and SNAP cuts, plus more eligibility verification requirements and work requirements will kick thousands of needy New Yorkers and Americans off of the benefits that help them make ends meet. On Thursday, Hochul said she was concerned about hospital closures, resulting from lower revenues for the state's rural hospitals that have a majority of their patient mix covered by Medicaid or other publicly funded insurance. "If that hospital, perhaps one of five in the north country, closes, you and your family don't have anywhere to go," she said. But when asked what the state may be able to do to backstop revenue cuts at hospitals that serve significant numbers of Medicaid patients, Hochul said the state can't do it. She directed reporters to ask the state's Republican lawmakers about how they plan to address the issue, suggesting those questions haven't been asked. A spokesperson for Stefanik told the Watertown Daily Times in late June that the Congresswoman does not acknowledge the predictions that the federal changes will hurt rural hospitals. "Republicans want to strengthen and secure Medicaid for eligible citizens as it is an indispensable lifeline for our nation's most vulnerable," the spokesperson said. "However, far left Democrats continue to fearmonger because they know President Trump is delivering results for the American people." Even as the Governor deflected, McDonald said the Hochul administration has eyed a handful of changes to state law that could lead to savings for health care providers. This year, the Hochul administration put forward a plan in the state budget that would have let New York join the Nurse Licensure Compact to allow out-of-state registered nurses to practice in New York more easily, and would have allowed certified nursing assistants to administer medications and vaccinations without a direct nursing supervisor with them. CNA's are currently restricted by the state's "scope of practice" rules that limit what they're able to do in the workplace. McDonald said 38 U.S. states have passed some sort of "scope" reform, and 49 other states allow CNA's to administer vaccines. He also noted that New York is also planning to spend $700 million over the next two years on workforce development to try to get more nurses working in the state. The state legislature did not approve the Hochul administration's changes and negotiated them out of the final agreement. On Thursday, Hochul also expressed frustration with the state Department of Education for not signing onto those changes. "This is an enormous source of frustration for me, that we can't get the legislature and the Department of Education to sign on to what other states are doing, which is to allow highly trained individuals to take on just one more activity, instead of us having to hire two people to do that activity," she said. "I'm just fed up with the absurdity of some of these policies, to be honest with you. There's no reason why we should not be leaning hard into finding all the ways we can support healthcare," she continued. Hochul said she intends to continue her push on that topic, but said she needs "more cooperation," from the state legislature and the Education Department. State Education Commissioner Betty D. Rosa was not in attendance at Thursday's press conference, even as the federal budget bill makes wide-ranging changes to federal education policy and loan regulations, and as the Trump administration lays off half of the U.S. Department of Education's staff. The only people present for the Thursday meeting were those appointed by the Governor directly. The state Education Department is not a direct offshoot of the state Executive Chamber — Hochul doesn't appoint the department's commissioner, rather the commissioner is appointed by the state Board of Regents, who themselves are appointed by the state legislature. Daylight frequently appears between the Governor and the state Education Department; most recently the issue was over the Governor's plan to take over a renovation of the state museum in Albany, removing the museum from the state Education Department's control. A spokesperson for the state Education Department did not return a request from comment from the Watertown Daily Times on Thursday. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
RI's James Beard Award winner; Tiverton 'castle'; Devers trade: Top stories this week
Here are some of The Providence Journal's most-read stories for the week of June 15, supported by your subscriptions. Like many states, Rhode Island is struggling with a nursing shortage, with close to 1,300 openings in the first quarter of 2025, up from 980 in the fourth quarter of 2024. The reasons range from low wages compared with neighboring states, COVID burnout and a bottleneck in nursing school admissions. Nurses at Butler Hospital have been striking since mid-May, demanding better pay, increased staffing and safer working conditions, and nurses are organizing at Rhode Island Hospital. The Journal's Jonny Williams looks at what the state is doing to improve the situation. Need to catch up with the end-of-session whirlwind at the General Assembly? Here's our guide. The June 18 Providence Journal All-State Awards show recognized more than 300 first-team All-State athletes and awarded Player of the Year honors to more than 30 high school athletes, with remarks by guest speaker Clay Holstad, midfielder for Rhode Island FC. Here's our report on this marquee event event in Rhode Island high school sports. For more sports news, go to . Looking for reading material? Check out which books Rhode Island's top elected officials will be toting to the beach. It's part of our Summer Guide coverage, which also includes food editor Gail Ciampa's roundup of where to find the best adult beverages to chill out when the mercury rises. Keep reading for more Summer Guide suggestions below. Here are the week's top reads on Sky Haneul Kim, chef at Gift Horse in Providence, has been added to the prestigious list of local James Beard winners after being named Best Chef: Northeast at the 2025 James Beard Foundation Awards. The 35th Restaurant and Chef Award gala was held at the Lyric Opera of Chicago on June 16. The James Beard awards are considered the Oscars of the food world. Wins have been rare for Rhode Island restaurants, but Kim's victory makes her the third best chef winner from Rhode Island and the second in three years. In 2023, Sherry Pocknett and her Sly Fox Den Too restaurant in Charlestown took home the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef Northeast. The restaurant has since closed. Al Forno's Johanne Killeen and the late George Germon won the regional best chef award in 1993. Read Journal food editor Gail Ciampa's report from Chicago, including the three other Beard finalists from Rhode Island who fell just short. Food: A Providence chef joined the ranks of James Beard Award winners. See who took the honor In April, the newly elected Narragansett Town Council proposed more than a dozen amendments to zoning regulations to make it easier to build in town, seeking to roll back changes made by the previous Town Council that made it harder to build new housing and flew in the face of state zoning laws. But the sheer number of changes rattled residents and led to an effort to recall three members of the Town Council. The recall has, for the moment, been called off after the council decided to workshop the zoning amendments, but the threat of it still looms. That leaves the town's housing war simmering, as Narragansett's population gets older, enrollment in its schools drops and its existing housing gets more expensive. How long can the town afford to fight efforts to increase its housing stock? Political Scene looks at the issue from both camps. Political Scene: A new Town Council aimed to fix Narragansett's housing problems. They could face a recall The state Supreme Court on June 16 suspended for six months and a day longtime Rhode Island lawyer 's license to practice after an investigation in Massachusetts found that he gave a client bad information about immigration consequences. DiLibero advised a client that a plea deal would not have negative immigration consequences, despite it being an aggravated felony, making the client immediately deportable and permanently inadmissible to the United States and ineligible for citizenship. DiLibero then falsely claimed to have provided correct advice and failed to cooperate with the client's new lawyer. Read the full report for more details on the case. Courts: RI lawyer has license suspended for six months for 'incompetent' advice. Here's why. Sunday, June 15, brought yet another trade that should be reserved for lesser franchises in Major League Baseball, says Journal sportswriter Bill Koch. The Red Sox aren't supposed to be shipping out club cornerstones. But that's what happened on Sunday night, with the jaw-dropping news that Rafael Devers had been traded to the San Francisco Giants, immediately dampening what should have been a statement weekend at Fenway Park with Boston's sweep of the New York Yankees. The immediate losers in all this are the fans, says Koch. And he offers his look at what the ripple effects might be for the franchise, from ownership through the active roster. : Four big takeaways from the shocking Rafael Devers trade from Boston to San Francisco TIVERTON – A lot of people think "castle" when they see Todd and Deborah Martin's house set off in the woods on Lake Road, but Todd had a different medieval inspiration in mind when they added to what was already a one-of-a-kind residence. Think Heorot, the mead hall of legendary Danish King Hrothgar that comes under attack in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem "Beowulf." What started as a 32-foot-diameter round stone house in the woods, sans kitchen, has been transformed by the Martins with the addition of two wings, bringing it up to 5,564 square feet and incorporating salvaged building materials from the 1870s through the 1920s. Check out the full story, including a gallery of the finished house, which is being showcased on the Zillow Gone Wild Instagram page. Real estate: Dreaming of living in a castle in the woods? A Tiverton house could make it come true To read the full stories, go to Find out how to subscribe here. This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Providence James Beard Award winner; Tiverton 'castle'; Devers trade
CTV News
05-06-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Change to address Manitoba nursing shortage linked to rise in complaints, injuries: regulatory body
The group regulating nurses in Manitoba say a recent change to address the nursing shortage in the province is putting patients at risk. Jeff Keele reports.
National Post
15-05-2025
- Health
- National Post
Amy Hamm: B.C. blows unknown tax dollars trying to lure anti-Trump nurses
Article content B.C.'s New Democratic premier and minister of health think that they can solve the province's nursing shortage by enticing U.S. nurses to cross the border. The idea is laughable. Article content Article content This week, Premier David Eby and his minister, Josie Osborne, announced that they had streamlined licensing applications for U.S. nurses, and approved a whopping — wait for it — 113 nurses to practice in B.C. This was following an online campaign with unknown costs, as per a statement Osborne provided to media. Article content For context, the province currently has approximately 6,000 vacant nursing positions. Those 113 American nurses represent a fraction of the shortage — a mere 1.8 per cent of the nurses required to make our system whole. Eby and Osborne both bragged of a 127 per cent increase in applications, to 177. Based on their numbers, if all American license applicants went on to get hired and work in B.C., this sudden increase would represent an additional 1.65 per cent of the 6,000 missing nurses. That is their best case scenario, and it's not much to brag about. Article content Article content There's more: in addition to the unknown costs of the B.C. government's recruitment campaign, Osborne told media this week that it's also unknown how many of the 113 nurses will go on to accept a job offer. How many of those few, I wonder, are aware of the current USD to CAD exchange rate? Article content American nurses typically earn more than their Canadian counterparts, and in a currency that is worth substantially more. To boot, B.C.'s annual nurse licensing fee is the highest in the country — and is astronomical compared to what American nurses pay. For instance, B.C. registered nurses paid over $800 after tax in 2025, while Washington nurses paid less than $150. So why, pray tell, would anyone choose to uproot their life and move countries, to a province with a high cost of living and lower salary? To B.C.'s ruling NDP, it's about social justice, of course. Article content Article content 'American health-care professionals are increasingly drawn to B.C. as a place that supports science, protects reproductive rights and takes care of people no matter how much money they have in their bank account,' Eby said in a media release on Monday. Article content Allow me to read between the lines of Eby's statement: he believes that he can take advantage of Democratic American nurses and health care workers, who, he hopes, might see Canada as a socialized-medicine paradise and haven for diversity, equity, and inclusion, 'gender affirming care,' punch-card abortion access, and any other activist cause du jour. In essence, he hopes to attract nurses who dislike President Trump so much that they would be willing to take a pay cut. Indeed, Eby and Osborne are targeting their recruitment campaign in blue states.
Medscape
07-05-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Uber for Nurses?
While many nurses work set schedules with occasional overtime, Martha Mendez, a registered nurse (RN) in El Centro, California, prefers a more flexible approach to patient care. It's the same way an Uber driver decides when they want to turn on their app and drive clients. Mendez signs up for shifts days — and sometimes hours — in advance and works for multiple health systems to care for patients all over Southern California. She is one of a growing number of nurses who have joined the gig economy. 'After being in a traditional role for many years, I was looking for…more control over my career, my schedule, and my earnings,' Mendez told Medscape Medical News . 'When I learned about the logistics of [gig work], it really caught my attention, and I gave it a shot.' The use of contract or gig workers in healthcare grew 18% from 2014 to 2021, and up to 53% of nurses planned to take on more temporary nursing shifts. Nurses can register with platforms like Float Health, CareRev, ShiftMed, and Clipboard Health to choose shifts that fit their schedules. The model, also known as per diem or float nursing, has been hailed as a potential solution to staffing shortages, allowing health systems to fill short-term staffing gaps and meet immediate patient needs. 'Every state has a nursing shortage…and that shortage is projected to increase,' said Katie Jett, DNP, RN, MSN, dean of the School of Nursing at Ponce Health Sciences University in St. Louis. 'A lot of nurses don't want to work 12-hour shifts and mandatory overtime… [Gig work allows nurses] to book around their schedules or come in for a 4-hour shift, and that is very enticing.' Medscape continually surveys physicians and other medical professionals about key practice challenges and current issues, creating high-impact analyses. For example, in Medscape's Nurse Career Satisfaction Report 2023, 13% of RNs and 15% of nurse practitioners (NPs) said that work-life balance was the most rewarding part of their job. 10% of RNs and 11% of NPs said that poor work-life balance was the least rewarding part of their job. If they could do it again, only 1 in 8 nurses would choose the same practice setting. The 'Uber of Nursing' Healthcare is struggling with nursing shortages, widespread burnout, and low job satisfaction, leaving health systems struggling to attract and retain nurses and fill shifts. Currently, 66% of healthcare facilities are not able to operate at full capacity due to staffing shortages. The gig model, once limited to rideshare drivers and food deliveries, has entered healthcare. Nurses choose a gig work platform and complete an onboarding process that often includes proof of licensure and certifications, background checks, and drug screens. Upon approval, platforms post open shifts, and nurses can claim those that match their credentials and specialties. Mendez started picking up shifts through Float Health in 2022. She'd worked in hospital emergency rooms, medical-surgical units, and correctional facilities for more than a decade and loved being at the bedside but felt that working conditions, including mandatory overtime, were 'unacceptable.' At first, Mendez only picked up one or two shifts per month doing at-home infusions for patients and continued to work in her full-time nursing role. The option for a flexible schedule, one-on-one patient care, and higher pay led her to leave that staff role and make the switch to per diem nursing. 'There was no comparison [with pay]; I would absolutely give up a 12-hour shift to take a Float patient for a few hours,' she said. 'But one of the biggest drivers is not money; it's being able to have the peace of mind that I have the balance to care for my family, not only financially, but to be there for them and offer the same care that I offer to others.' Signing bonuses and improved compensation and benefits packages are common approaches to attracting nurses, but nurses also crave flexibility. The latest data show that 33% of nurses wanted to pick up shifts on an as-needed basis and cited the ability to work partial shifts and pick up additional work at different facilities as key areas of career interest. The recognition that gig platforms account for a growing part of the healthcare workforce has led some health systems, including St. Louis-based Mercy Health, to create their own gig work platform. In 2022, Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Missouri, launched Mercy Works on Demand, a cloud-based platform that enables nurses to pick up shifts. More than 50 nurses signed up for the 2022 pilot, including full-time school nurses who wanted to earn extra income and RNs who took time off to raise children but wanted to return to the bedside for a few hours per month. The internal float pool concept expanded to other hospitals within the Mercy system. Bon Secours Mercy Health in Cincinnati followed with Andgo in 2024. The program sends text messages about available shifts and allows nurses to claim the gigs. Since going live, the hospital has seen an increase in the number of shifts picked up, resulting in decreased costs and safe patient care, according to Jodi Pahl, RN-BC, DNP, the system chief nursing officer of Workforce, Outcomes, and Experience of Care at Bon Secours Mercy Health. Pahl points to the advantages of an internal model, citing consistent care from nurses trained within the organization and aligned with its culture and standards, adding, 'These nurses are more engaged, adaptable, and cost-effective than gig workers, avoiding the high fees and variability associated with external staffing.' Internal float pools also serve as a retention pipeline for future permanent hires. Critical of the Care Model The expanding gig work in healthcare has raised some concerns. A recent report from the Roosevelt Institute, New York City, called the model a 'Wall Street takeover of US healthcare infrastructure' and warned that gig nursing platforms offer lower rates, fail to guarantee available shifts or offer certainty about the nature of the work, and fail to account for worker safety and patient well-being. Jett is familiar with the concerns. 'We have to take it back to [patient] outcomes,' she said. 'The literature is well documented that consistent care by knowledgeable nurses improves health outcomes for patients, so there's no doubt that you're more likely to get better care with a nurse that knows the unit, knows the policies, knows the procedures, has an orientation…that is the best for our patients.' But she adds that burnout is also linked to lower patient safety, quality of care, and patient satisfaction. There is also some debate about the fees paid to RNs who work on a per diem basis. The average rate for RNs picking up shifts through gig work apps is $59 per hour, according to the Roosevelt Institute report (compared with a median wage of $41.38 per hour), according to However, some apps have a bid-for-gigs model that allows health systems to hire nurses willing to work for the lowest rates. Jett calls it 'algorithmic wage discrimination' and notes that it can drive down rates for gig workers. In addition, nurses working as independent contractors may lack protections like sick leave and unemployment insurance. Despite the criticisms — and the need for real solutions to address nursing shortages, burnout, and unsafe work environments — Jett believes gig work is 'here to stay' in healthcare and encourages solutions that balance the needs of nurses, patients, and health systems. 'My hope is that there is a way to…provide flexibility and work-life balance and fair compensation to nurses,' she said. Gig work might be it.
