Growing the Health care Workforce

Overview

Following the pandemic, Florida hospitals and health care systems continue to face critical workforce shortages, exponential growth in  labor costs, and dependency on temporary staffing. The dramatic rise in hospital labor costs—combined with inflation and significant losses in hospital budget reserves from the stock market decline—increases the financial strain on hospitals. Hospitals have seen historically high turnover rates among nurses of over 32%, and based on a 2021 FHA analysis, the state faces an overall shortage of 59,000 nurses by 2035.

The current market requires hospitals to enact extraordinary measures to retain staff and fill vacancies, including salary market adjustments to address the value of labor under current economic conditions. Hospitals are also implementing new policies and procedures to support their health care teams and increase retention, including maximizing the skills of every team member and leveraging technology to reduce administrative burdens.