Financial challenges are second most pressing issue in annual survey conducted by the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Workforce challenges ranked Number One on the list of hospital CEO top concerns in 2022, according to an annual survey conducted by the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Workforce shortages have become a pressing issue for the clinical operations at health systems, hospitals, and physician practices across the country. Healthcare organizations are facing workforce shortages across the board, with nursing shortages, physician shortages, and shortages in many other areas such as technicians.
The American College of Healthcare Executives is an international professional society of more than 48,000 healthcare executives who lead hospitals, health systems, and other healthcare organizations. The annual survey asked community hospital CEOs to rank their top 11 concerns and to identify specific areas of concern within each of those issues. The survey was sent to more than 1,300 community hospital CEOs and nearly 300 executives participated in the survey.
This marks the second year in a row that workforce or personnel challenges has been the top-ranked issue. Before that, financial challenges ranked first in the survey for 16 consecutive years.
Hospitals need to pursue both long- and short-term initiatives to tackle workforce issues to continue to provide care for their patients now and in the future, Deborah Bowen, FACHE, president and CEO of the American College of Healthcare Executives, said in a prepared statement. "Longer-term solutions include strengthening the workforce pipeline through creative partnerships, such as those with colleges to grow the number of nurses and technicians. More immediate solutions include supporting and developing all staff, building staff resilience, organizing services to reflect the realities of the labor market, and exploring alternative models of care."
The Top 5 concerns identified by hospital CEOs were as follows:
- Workforce challenges such as personnel shortages
- Financial challenges
- Behavioral health and addiction issues
- Patient safety and quality
- Government mandates
The Top 5 workforce concerns identified by hospital CEOs were as follows:
- Shortages of registered nurses
- Shortages of technicians
- Burnout among non-physician staff
- Shortages of therapists
- Shortages of physician specialists
The Top 5 financial concerns identified by hospital CEOs were as follows:
- Increasing costs for staff and supplies
- Reducing operating costs
- Medicaid reimbursement
- Managed care and other commercial insurance payments
- Government funding cuts in addition to reductions in Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement
The Top 5 behavioral heath and addiction issues identified by hospital CEOs were as follows:
- Lack of appropriate facilities and programs in the community
- Lack of funding to address behavioral health and addiction issues
- Insufficient reimbursement for behavioral health and addiction services
- High volume of opioid addiction and related conditions
- Legal and regulatory frameworks limiting treatment options
Related: Physician Search Exec: 'The Physician Recruitment Market Is Tighter Than Ever'
Christopher Cheney is the CMO editor at HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Shortages of registered nurses were the top workforce concern identified by hospital CEOs.
Increasing costs for staff and supplies were the top financial concern identified by hospital CEOs.
Lack of appropriate facilities and programs in the community were the top behavioral health and addiction concern identified by hospital CEOs.