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As Hospital Hiring Slips, Robot Workers Lurk

 |  By Chelsea Rice  
   June 10, 2013

In the news this week: Healthcare job growth hits a skid; Robots are programmed for direct patient care jobs; Tennessee strengthens laws to protect nurses and physicians from workplace violence.

Economists have predicted that the pain of federal sequestration cuts would be felt throughout the year. Halfway through the year, the May jobs report landed like a punch.

Released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the jobs report shows a significant dip in the usually robust hospital sector. Hospitals, which have averaged 5,600 new monthly jobs since January 2013, reversed the trend in May. Although hospitals are continuing to create jobs, the numbers have dropped significantly:

The government's healthcare cost reduction focus is having an effect on jobs:

  • Ambulatory care services (making up for hospitals' slowdown in job creation) created 15,300 additional jobs, more than 12% increase since last month.
  • Outpatient care services grew almost four times as quickly in May than April, creating 3,500 additional jobs.
  • Physician's offices created 13% less jobs.
  • Home health care services stayed approximately the same since April.
  • Nursing and residential care services also slowed down, by 52% since last month. 
  • Healthcare as a whole added 11,000 additional jobs from April to May.

Staff shortages may return; robots will be ready

Healthcare job creation may be in decline, but there are still jobs to be filled. And human healthcare workers maybeing supplemented by an automated workforce, especially in jobs such as nursing, which provide direct patient care.



>>>Slideshow: Robots as healthcare workers

As hospitals continue to invest in surgical robotics and telehealth services, basic patient care has also become a place for innovation. Some robot prototypes are entering the market that can examine patients, while others can lift, transport, and assist mobility-challenged patients with daily routine tasks.

Japan and Korea are ahead of the game, already using robots to help care for their quickly aging population. "Nurse droids" like KIRO-M5, developed in 2011 from The Korea Institute of Robot and Convergence, are so sensitive they can detect a soiled diaper.

If and when hospitals begin to adopt these labor-savers, patient assistant robots could provide a solution to the costly nurse staffing problems, and as a result increase patient safety and satisfaction.

USA Today reported this week that hospitals in the Mercy Telehealth Network improved stroke treatment ("door-to-needle") response time using a robot called RP-VITA, which remotely monitors patients. With advanced sensors from its makers iRobot and InTouch Health, RP-VITA can direct itself up and down hospital hallways and remotely check vital signs with a stethoscope and video for the physician. This allows physicians to take calls and visit patients remotely within five minutes. If the robot detects stroke symptoms, it alerts the provider staff wirelessly.

Although far from human themselves (we hope), humanoid robots may increase the quality of patient-provider relationships by increasing the amount of time nurses and physicians can spend with individual patients.

Tennessee passes healthcare workplace violence law
Violence toward healthcare workers is not uncommon and comes at a high cost. And the number of states cracking down is growing. On July 1 this year, a new Tennessee law takes effect in which doubles the fine for physically assaulting a healthcare provider to $5,000, the same amount charged for assaulting a police officer.

The legislation, signed by Governor Bill Haslam and sponsored by the Tennessee Nurses Association, is the first law passed about this issue so far this year according to the American Nurses Association.

Fifteen healthcare workers out of every 10,000 experience an incident of violence in the workplace, a rate more than three times the total for the rest of the private industries. From 2003 to 2009, almost half of all non-fatal workplace violence incidents occurred in healthcare settings, most inflicted by patients.

"Workplace violence has huge costs in physical as well as emotional harm and is detrimental to patient care. We believe this law will be a step toward raising awareness and curbing the rise in violence… making our health care workers, and thus their patients, safer," wrote Sharon Adkins, MSN, RN, executive director of the Tennessee Nurses Association in Nashville, in an email.

Nineteen other states (AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, HI, IL, NE, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OK, TN, VT, VA, and WV) have similar laws that increased the fines for workplace violence against healthcare providers, while nine (CA, CT, IL, ME, NJ, NY, OR, WA and WV) have additional legislation mandating healthcare employers establish workplace violence prevention programs and reporting policies.

Chelsea Rice is an associate editor for HealthLeaders Media.
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