Speaker 1: From Sarasota Memorial and the Deb Kavanoff Multimedia Studio, this is HealthCast, a healthy dose of information from experts you can trust.

Speaker 2: Hi, everybody. Welcome to HealthCast. I'm Alison Gottermeier. Thank you so much for joining us today as we talk about recruiting in healthcare and talent retention as it relates to patient outcomes in the hospital. Our guest today is Lori Bennett, the Vice President of Human Resources for Sarasota Memorial Healthcare System. Lori, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for inviting me. There's been a lot of talk nationally about a shortage of healthcare workers. Can you shine some light on what that means for an organization like SMH?

Speaker 3: Yeah. I think the past couple of years, hospitals have been completely overwhelmed dealing with the COVID pandemic, not having enough staffing. And then as the pandemic evolved, it drove 20% of our healthcare workers out of the field, whether they left to go on travel assignments, which oftentimes seem very lucrative. I think in a lot of cases, techs and nurses found themselves to be completely overwhelmed in an extremely tight, stressful situation on the end when they arrived and questioning whether the money was worth it, as well as I think some people just looked at their retirement accounts and decided, hey, is it time to just cash in? I think COVID created that environment where people really questioned what they wanted to do long-term. In terms of here at Sarasota Memorial, we continue to be hyper-vigilant about recruitment and retention. I think we always were, but with recruitments, we recruit nationally. Although there's no real secret answer for recruitment, I think it just creates a scenario where every day you have to be creative and keep trying new and different things. The one thing that we knew is retention has really had to be a focus. We couldn't erode the staff that we had. We wanted to make sure that they felt supported during the pandemic, doing everything that we could to help support them during extremely stressful times here, as well as personal stress stresses. I'm proud to say that during the height of the pandemic in 2021, we did our annual employee engagement Gallup survey. We scored the highest grand mean score that we ever had historically. That was a great validation to the leadership team that we really did have our focus on the right things in supporting our team members through these times. We did everything from COVID hotlines, expressed COVID testing. We had initiatives where we gave gas cards out to employees, food trucks, campus food coupons, and on and on. Plus just rounding, just touching base, making sure that our team was doing okay. I think all of that was very validating to see in the Gallup score that we did a great job with the team.

Speaker 2: It's not just the COVID pandemic, though, that caused the shortage of healthcare workers. That certainly brought it into the national spotlight, but it was already going on, correct?

Speaker 3: That's correct. We were already stressed. I think COVID just exacerbated the situation. And now I think here in the state of Florida, especially, we had a lot of transplants come to the state of Florida, relocate, and those weren't necessarily the individuals that were adding to the workforce. So there are individuals coming to retire, still a lot of the baby boomers coming to retire here and in need of healthcare, but not adding to the workforce numbers. The other part that is a challenge for us daily is affordable housing. As we look to attract talent at all levels of positions, as well as people at all levels of their careers, I know oftentimes they find it unaffordable, looking at the annual rental amounts.

Speaker 2: When we say healthcare workers, who exactly are we talking about? What parts of the workforce are we really seeing that shortage in?

Speaker 3: We're talking about doctors, nurses, RNs, LPNs, CNAs, healthcare aides, pharmacists, rad techs, anyone who really touches the patient in their care.

Speaker 2: So I know you talked about the efforts SMH is doing nationwide to recruit, and you said there's not necessarily a true secret sauce, but what is SMH doing to try to attract that top talent?

Speaker 3: So I think we have a multi-pronged approach. Here locally, we really want to get in front of the students and talk to them about the ecosystem of endless job pathways or opportunities we have. Oftentimes we hear from the students that they feel that the only two people that work in a hospital are a doctor and a nurse, and that they're really not educated on the number of IT positions we have. I mean, I can just go on and on, and so they always find it extremely enlightening to learn more about it. In fact, we are doing our second annual summer employment program, where we opened up 88 positions across and advertised it to the Sarasota County School System for summer employment opportunities for students. And we have filled all of those positions. The window's now closed, but we look forward to those students joining us in June and their high school as well as college students who will work with us across the organization here in Sarasota as well as Venice, and they'll get to see how we work. As well as we'll have many different touch points of shadowing opportunities, and we'll get in front of them and talk about career pathways. The second item of focus that is what we call career steps, and that's our own internal homegrown program that we designed. So we had an illustration so when we go out to the schools, we can really show them in whatever career destination of their choice might be, whether they desire a career in IT or hospitality, radiology, how you can start off in an entry-level position and grow all the way up into a leadership position, what the educational requirements are for that position, as well as the income potential. So it's nice to really have that visualization and succession plan in mind for the students as they're asking those really difficult questions with all the choices that students and kids have this day and age. I think it really gives them a great visual to see how they can start here, earn tuition reimbursement, and just have a wonderful career. And then the last thing that I would mention that is a focus for us now is educational offerings, whether it be a partnership with a school to do sponsor CNA classes or an educational program we're doing here, such as the phlebotomy course. And then last but not least, our GN residency program for nurses, where nurses will spend 14 months in a residency area before being placed in their ultimate home clinical unit to gain those experiences. So those are, I think, three of the really things that we are focused on right now that are really critical.

Speaker 2: Sarasota Memorial is repeatedly recognized for this top quality care provided. And part of that is because of the quality talent for the workforce that is recruited here, or a major part of that is because of the quality health care workers at Sarasota Memorial. What sets these SMH programs apart to make sure we're getting that top talent and retaining that top talent?

Speaker 3: Well, I think it's the team here who's preparing all of the educational offerings. It's the really plethora of different positions that we have and the availability to specialize. Plus, it's all of our accolades that I think really we are able to kind of provide those really quality offerings.

Speaker 2: And amidst this health care worker shortage, Sarasota Memorial continues to expand. So can you talk about how that can make it even more difficult, but also with adding programs like the Cancer Institute, building the Behavioral Health Pavilion, how that also helps bring in some top talent at the same time? So it's kind of a mixed bag there.

Speaker 3: Absolutely. So I think we need to educate our applicants on who we are. They might be from out of the state of Florida. They don't know who Sarasota Memorial is. So our recruitment outreach is much broader than it ever has been, and it really has to be because of the sheer growth for those new positions. But we like to do specialty kind of recruitment spotlights for whether it's cancer or our new Cornell Family Behavioral Health Pavilion. All of that is very attractive for candidates to work in new facilities.

Speaker 2: So then some people say, why is Sarasota Memorial expanding if there's this health care worker shortage? Can you kind of address that?

Speaker 3: I think we're focused on what the community need is, really, and looking at the whole network of care where we're missing opportunities and where there are breakdowns kind of in or lapses in certain elements of care, that we would do it because we know that it is such a community focus.

Speaker 2: So aside from recruitment, you touched on the fact that many baby boomers decided to retire or are retiring now. So can you talk a little bit about the impact of turnover in health care?

Speaker 3: Yeah, turnover is really critical right now. And I know you hear a lot about RN turnover, but it's turnover in all of the different facets for health care. I'm happy to say that we, even in looking at the national numbers, we have been far below the benchmark. In 2022, we were at 21.5 percent turnover against the national benchmark of 27.9. So I think all of our focus on recruitment and retention have paid off.

Speaker 2: What are some of the things Sarasota Memorial does to manage retention and keep the positive feelings amongst current health care workers to keep them here?

Speaker 3: Absolutely. I think it's our focus on the engagement and making sure that staff have what they need, that they feel supported, that they feel that they have opportunity for advancement. I think that's really what people are looking for in order to stay at an organization. They've got to see that there is a clear guide path to get them to the ultimate position that they aspire to.

Speaker 2: Recently, Sarasota Memorial had the annual service anniversary celebration. And when you're talking about staff that have been here 45 years, 40 years, 35 years, clearly Sarasota Memorial has staff retention that is successful. So what are some of the things that you do to foster that feeling and that ability to keep the workforce as best as we can?

Speaker 3: Well, I think that it's always monitoring and watching our culture, focusing in on the employee experience is really critical. From an organizational perspective, in terms of looking at the rights, are the benefits meeting the need of our employee population? What about compensation? Keeping our eye on the market and making sure that wages are up to market. And then it's the education, the tuition reimbursement, our child care program, which I think we are one of a very few hospitals that continues to offer child care to our team. We have two child care facilities. That's really critical. And then I think we've just looking at the employee promotional opportunities. We always give first opportunity to our internal team members. And there's endless across the system. And that only continues to grow as we expand our footprint.

Speaker 2: You mentioned that Sarasota Memorial has done much better than national average on retention, specifically in nursing, but all across the board. How does that impact patient care at SMH?

Speaker 3: I think it really, with having consistent staff who are committed to their job and the quality of work, absolutely has a direct correlation on great quality, consistent patient care.

Speaker 2: What are the current needs at SMH? Where are you currently recruiting? Where is the organization looking most?

Speaker 3: Most of our positions are for direct patient care areas. We have over 1,000 positions across the system. And I would encourage anyone who is looking for a position to go to smh.com, click on the careers tab. We have all of our in-person events. We're getting back to in-person events, which we're excited about, listed towards the bottom of the page. You can come meet with us. And oftentimes, we even are doing tours of departments to see firsthand what the department and unit looks like, and the leadership, meet the leadership team, as well as all of our positions are listed by location and title on the careers.com website.

Speaker 2: What do you want the community to know? I mean, when you say you have over 1,000 positions listed at Sarasota Memorial, that can sound concerning or scary, but it's not.

Speaker 3: We're still managing, correct? Absolutely. We also give wonderful quality patient care day to day. A lot of these are growth positions as we look to expand across the system.

Speaker 2: Excellent. Lori Bennett, thank you so much for joining us today and answering some of the questions about the healthcare worker shortage, which is really being talked about a lot more nationally. We're glad it's being handled well right here at home. As always, we encourage everyone in our community to visit smh.com to get the latest from Sarasota Memorial. Have a great day. Thank you.