Four months ago - on August 2 - medical officials with Northeast Georgia Health System were watching the onset of a fourth surge of COVID hospitalizations. At a press conference that day, Executive Director of Medical Nursing Elizabeth Larkins, RN, told reporters NGHS was short 550 nurses - and she said she didn't know how many of the nurses who were still on staff could weather the strain of another surge.
Since that time, NGHS officials have worked to fill the gaps on the nursing staff by offering healthy $10,000 signing bonuses to new nurses. They've also increased base pay for nursing staff. Plus, they offer referral bonuses for those current employees whose recommendations lead to new hires.
Laura Hays, the Executive Director of Total Rewards and HR Systems for NGHS, said she believes the incentives are slowly but steadily working. As of Dec. 8, there were 400 nursing vacancies; at full capacity, NGHS would have 3,200 nurses serving across four hospitals.
Hays said some areas have greater need than others.
"In critical care, there are vacancies there, as well as the OR," Hayes said. "A lot of the procedural areas, even some of the med-surg units...I think probably the only area where maybe we don't have vacancies in high numbers would be in mother-baby, OB, those types of areas."
Hays said there's been a shortage of nurses nationwide over the past several years, but the coronavirus pandemic certainly has made the situation worse.
"Nationwide, there's a shortage for sure," Hays said. "COVID, though, has had a profound impact. I mean, some people are leaving the industry because of that. I think there would be a shortage regardless, but COVID added to it."
Other factors at play include the rate of retirement for nurses and the fact that nursing schools aren't graduating enough new nurses to fill the need in the medical field.
Hays said NGHS is also competing with other hospitals for nurses - and other personnel, as well. Even so, she said NGHS is competitive when it comes to compensation.
"I do know what we're not getting is people declining offers because of salary," Hays said. "We're certainly market competitive."
Hays said while the focus lately has been on hiring and retaining nurses, NGHS has plenty of other employment availabilities, as well. In fact, there are about 1,100 job openings in both clinical and non-clinical areas.
"I think there are some folks who don't realize we have non-clinical positions," Hays said. "There's finance, there's supply chain, there's accounting, IT."
Hays said clinical or non-clinical, employees work toward a common goal of making NGHS successful for the North Georgia community.
