Maria Shepherd, President and Founder, Medi-Vantage03.28.23
Is there any change in the hospital for which COVID hasn’t been a factor? During the pandemic, the demand for medical devices and capital equipment increased due to the need for more technology in hospitals to treat COVID-19 patients, such as IT for telehealth infrastructure, personal protective equipment (PPE), etc. This resulted in a significant boost to a segment of the medical device capital equipment market, as demand for products such as ventilators, monitors, and PPE skyrocketed. For other medical device capex, the pandemic forced hospital budgets for medical device capital equipment into significant challenges due to decreased revenue from postponed or cancelled procedures, increased expenses for PPE and COVID-related treatments, and financial strain from emergency preparedness efforts. Some hospitals delayed or postponed purchases of non-essential medical devices to conserve resources, such as capital equipment that could have the usable life extended by a year or more with low risk or consequences. However, the exact impact on hospital budgets for medical device capital equipment varied depending on the severity of the pandemic in specific regions and the financial stability of individual hospitals.
Fortunately, 40% plan to take a nursing role at another healthcare facility. Conversely, 32% of nurses say they will leave the field completely or retire.1
It is not difficult for a nurse to find a new job; demand is high. The survey revealed 42% of nurses began a new nursing position since January 2021. The primary reason they took a new job was higher pay (58%), wanted a different role (33%), a better schedule (31%), a more desirable location (25%), a promotion or educational opportunities (24%), and improved staffing (24%).1
Since this problem isn’t going away anytime soon, medtech companies can offer a solution to hospital and ASC customers by making products simpler to use, easier to assemble, and require fewer people to assist surgeons and interventionalists while performing procedures. This is easier said than done; it requires looking at the unmet needs of the OR or the interventional suite in an entirely new way. In addition, there are digital tools that can assist with this process.
Presentations at the JP Morgan Healthcare meeting in San Francisco this past January offered further confirmation the open positions problem would continue.3 Staffing is still an issue, and hospitals have ramped up their international searches to reduce their reliance on expensive temporary hires. Pay escalation in other industries, as well as the desirability (and unattainability for nurses) of remote work makes staffing an ongoing issue for healthcare organizations for the long term.
Even before the pandemic, healthcare executives forewarned of a nursing shortage at hospitals. Then, recurrent surges of COVID made the situation catastrophic, owing to nurse fatigue and moral distress. Moral distress is classified as a psychological response to morally challenging situations such as situations where nurses face ethical issues that have no morally acceptable responses and feel powerless to act in accordance with internal values.4
In September 2021, the results of a survey of critical care nurses (n=6,500) presented by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, 92% of respondents reported COVID-19 had “depleted nurses at their hospitals, and, as a result, their careers will be shorter than they intended.” Further, 66% said they were contemplating departing nursing because of their COVID-19 experiences, and 76% said patients who were unvaccinated “threatened nurses’ physical and mental well-being.”5
Addressing the shortage of nurses is no small matter. In research over the past 30 years, the link between insufficient nursing staff in hospitals and increased patient morbidity and mortality has been well established. The strength of the data is the root cause leading California to establish legislation requiring minimum nurse-to-patient staffing ratios.6
This all is common knowledge to hospital and nurse executives. In August 2021, 47% of hospital and nurse executives identified staff retention, furloughs, and layoffs as a significant challenge. According to Premier, by the end of 2021, the pandemic had cost hospitals approximately $24 billion to address the nursing shortage.7
Overtime hours were up 52% as of September 2021 when compared to a pre-pandemic baseline. In addition, agency and temporary labor were up 132% for full-time employees and 131% for part time.7 Staff turnover in all departments grew (Table 3).
References
Maria Shepherd has more than 20 years of leadership experience in marketing in small startups and top-tier companies. After her industry career, she founded Medi-Vantage, which provides marketing and business strategy and innovation research for the medical device industry. Shepherd can be reached at mshepherd@medi-vantage.com. Visit her website at www.medi-vantage.com.
Why This Is Important
Nurses, the unsung heroes of the healthcare industry, also took a hit. Stress and burnout from the relentless work seen throughout the COVID-19 pandemic have been a major blow for nurses and other healthcare workers and it could cause many to vacate their jobs. 34% of nurses stated it was highly likely they would give notice by the end of 2022 (Table 1).1Fortunately, 40% plan to take a nursing role at another healthcare facility. Conversely, 32% of nurses say they will leave the field completely or retire.1
It is not difficult for a nurse to find a new job; demand is high. The survey revealed 42% of nurses began a new nursing position since January 2021. The primary reason they took a new job was higher pay (58%), wanted a different role (33%), a better schedule (31%), a more desirable location (25%), a promotion or educational opportunities (24%), and improved staffing (24%).1
Opportunity for Medtech
Hospitals report there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel on nurse staffing. There are abundant job openings (Table 2), heavy use of premium-priced travel nurses, and the typical difficulties seen with onboarding new nurses.Since this problem isn’t going away anytime soon, medtech companies can offer a solution to hospital and ASC customers by making products simpler to use, easier to assemble, and require fewer people to assist surgeons and interventionalists while performing procedures. This is easier said than done; it requires looking at the unmet needs of the OR or the interventional suite in an entirely new way. In addition, there are digital tools that can assist with this process.
Presentations at the JP Morgan Healthcare meeting in San Francisco this past January offered further confirmation the open positions problem would continue.3 Staffing is still an issue, and hospitals have ramped up their international searches to reduce their reliance on expensive temporary hires. Pay escalation in other industries, as well as the desirability (and unattainability for nurses) of remote work makes staffing an ongoing issue for healthcare organizations for the long term.
Even before the pandemic, healthcare executives forewarned of a nursing shortage at hospitals. Then, recurrent surges of COVID made the situation catastrophic, owing to nurse fatigue and moral distress. Moral distress is classified as a psychological response to morally challenging situations such as situations where nurses face ethical issues that have no morally acceptable responses and feel powerless to act in accordance with internal values.4
In September 2021, the results of a survey of critical care nurses (n=6,500) presented by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, 92% of respondents reported COVID-19 had “depleted nurses at their hospitals, and, as a result, their careers will be shorter than they intended.” Further, 66% said they were contemplating departing nursing because of their COVID-19 experiences, and 76% said patients who were unvaccinated “threatened nurses’ physical and mental well-being.”5
Addressing the shortage of nurses is no small matter. In research over the past 30 years, the link between insufficient nursing staff in hospitals and increased patient morbidity and mortality has been well established. The strength of the data is the root cause leading California to establish legislation requiring minimum nurse-to-patient staffing ratios.6
This all is common knowledge to hospital and nurse executives. In August 2021, 47% of hospital and nurse executives identified staff retention, furloughs, and layoffs as a significant challenge. According to Premier, by the end of 2021, the pandemic had cost hospitals approximately $24 billion to address the nursing shortage.7
Overtime hours were up 52% as of September 2021 when compared to a pre-pandemic baseline. In addition, agency and temporary labor were up 132% for full-time employees and 131% for part time.7 Staff turnover in all departments grew (Table 3).
The Medi-Vantage Perspective
According to the American Hospital Association, healthcare organizations across the country lost approximately $54 billion in net income over the course of 2021.8 This includes the positive impact of the $176 billion in CARES Act funding from 2020. It’s time to open up those voice of the customer manuals and start looking at the unmet needs surrounding the procedure to see how we can develop our devices to reduce the number of full-time employees or staff members required to assist the surgeon or interventionalist. This is not an easy process, but it can be done and the end result is a more competitive device with added savings that can be calculated on a budgetary impact model to show to the value analysis committee.References
- bit.ly/mpo230401
- bit.ly/mpo230402
- bit.ly/mpo230403
- bit.ly/mpo230404
- bit.ly/mpo230405
- bit.ly/mpo230406
- bit.ly/mpo230407
- bit.ly/mpo230408
Maria Shepherd has more than 20 years of leadership experience in marketing in small startups and top-tier companies. After her industry career, she founded Medi-Vantage, which provides marketing and business strategy and innovation research for the medical device industry. Shepherd can be reached at mshepherd@medi-vantage.com. Visit her website at www.medi-vantage.com.