Help Wanted: Good Workers in a Growing Industry

You know what they say, without your health, you have nothing. So it is no wonder the economy has health care as its anchor industry. Jobs and industries may come and go, but health care is always needed. It may change with the times, but is it always called health care.

It also needs well qualified personnel. Nurses and other professionals have been and will probably be in demand because of the health care needs of our communities. We need to take good care of them, as well.
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ARTICLE SOURCE
Health care has become the beating heart of America's economy.

By Kendra Marr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 13, 2008

In the past 15 years, the health-care economy has pumped out 4.5 million new jobs, including related fields such as drug development and health insurance. A dozen of the 30 fastest-growing occupations are related to health care. Even last month -- as the unemployment rate took its biggest jump in 22 years -- health care continued to add thousands of jobs.

No other industry matches this rapid growth spurt. Globalization has closed factories. New technologies have shrunk retailers and agriculture operations. Few jobs have been created in the finance and insurance industry recently, with the exception of health and real estate. Then the housing bubble burst.

And despite the flashy success of Web 2.0 companies such as Google and Facebook, the current tech economy -- telecom, software, electronics and throngs of techie start-ups -- still employs fewer Americans than at the height of the dot-com boom.

The health-care economy is only bound to grow larger. The aging baby boomer population is about to spur a new wave of health-care needs. Advances in technology are improving the survival rate of terminally ill and injured patients, who need extended therapy and care.

The health-care economy now employs about 16.5 million Americans. In the past three decades, the total national spending on health care has more than doubled to 16 percent of the gross domestic product. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that by 2082, rising health care costs will push that spending to nearly 50 percent.


On Monday, the Senate Finance Committee will host a day-long summit on health care, meant to help prepare legislators to wrestle with how they might approach reforming it.

Clearly, health care comes at a steep cost to the public and individuals. At the same time, it has brought about economic benefits, such as creating a second life for older manufacturing cities. Manufacturing, as a percentage of the GDP, has been cut in half in the past 30 years.

The auto industry has been steadily shrinking in greater Detroit, for example, shedding tens of thousands of car manufacturing jobs in the past decade. Ford plans to cut white-collar salary costs 15 percent by August, laying off an unspecified number of workers.

Next year, the Henry Ford Health System, named after the father of the modern assembly line himself, plans to open a $350 million community hospital that will employ 1,600 new hires.

Cleveland has emerged as a prime location for medical care and research. Longtime manufacturers, like machine-tool behemoth Warner & Swasey, that once dominated the region's economy, been replaced by the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals, two of the state's largest employers, and more than 500 companies providing medical goods and services.

"In this global economy, we knew we needed to stimulate a new economy in what we have skills in," said Baiju Shah, president and chief executive of BioEnterprise, which has helped develop the region's health-care industry. "Health care is one of those shining spots for Cleveland."

Read the rest of the article



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Medicare Tax Abuse Eroding the Public Trust of Hospitals & Nursing Homes

It looks like more bad news embarrassing health care workers. Who wants to work hard and demonstrate their utmost dedication to their patients as if they were their own family and then find out their hospital or nursing home has been cheating the system and jeopardizing their job security?

READ NEWS REPORT HERE

Even though we're talking about a few billion dollars, which is quite a bit, it seems as if only 6% of the health care facilities are guilty. It doesn't make you feel good because all the press is concentrating on the fraud rather than the fact the 94% of the hospitals and nursing homes are paying their taxes properly.

We can't let it get to us. We have to keep up our own good work taking care of the people who need us.

Does Your Facility's State Inspection Demonstrate Your Staff's Wellness?

It is a stressful time. The state inspectors come in to observe patient care and worker performance. Are things clean enough? Are patients' needs met quickly and efficiently with dignity? Is the health care team communicating well with each other? Are the medicines organized and secure? Are mistakes being made that compromise patient care?

No one likes to be criticized by an outsider who has no idea how easy or difficult your particular day has been. The comments are important as well as the team's reaction to the comments.

A highly commended report makes everyone feel relieved. A report that lists a number of deficienies is disappointing. Their nit-picking can be annoying. It can be used to guage the dedication of the health care team. Even with complete dedication to the job, poor training can't be hidden in a poor score.

Can the state report be correlated with staff appropriateness and their wellness?
If the report is rated excellent, it is a time to "strut your stuff."

Stress levels certainly go up when the state inspectors are around. It is a nerve racking time when you begin to distrust your fellow team members. If you don't have condfidence in the person working by your side, you eventually hurt you own work performance.

Let's keep the stress levels manageable. We can all survive this together.

Your work should be your play and your play should be your work.

Work is a home away from home. Feeling at home while at work is important. It's important for patients, too. If they don't feel comfortable, how can they relax and help their own healing?

When Wellness Programs Fall Short

How to Ruin an Employee Wellness Program:
Lesson 1 -- Don't do anything spectacular
Lesson 2 -- Make your employees feel less than human

Lesson 3...

Well what am I talking about?

Just what we don't need, a wellness program that does more lecturing than inspiring. There are many programs that have good intentions but they don't do much more than a sidewalk health fair that gives out free pens and takes a quick blood sugar test or blood pressure. It doesn't motivate the employees to grow as a team trying to promote their best human potential.

Do you want to be slapped on the wrist for being overweight? Do you want to feel like a failure when you aren't walking around the block on your lunch hour? Do you feel worse than when you go to your general practitioner?

Below is an interesting blog post I found about this topic. An enthusiastic worker wanted to make improvements in her health, but ended up feeling rejected. You can also check out the 5 tips for saving your employees.

Here is her story:

I signed up for the wellness program because I am incredibly interested in wellness and wished to participate in my ongoing journey to health and self acceptance through a wellness program. I appreciate that (company name) offers it and I believed it to be an opportunity to see (from a participant point of view) what (company name)is all about.

I understood that the wellness program was dependent on setting and ‘checking in’ on self created goals. I was excited to couple a health educator’s knowledge with the ongoing journey that I have been on.
CLICK HERE TO READ HER ENTIRE BLOG

Doctors and Nurses Not Immune to Stress

A recent news story from Life Supplemented stated doctors and nurses "try" to follow good health practices. CLICK HERE FOR THE ARTICLE This is a great start. Everyone should feel motivated to do well with their wellness practices.

I still came across other statistics that showed there are issues with nurses who have obesity and smoking concerns. Substance abuse is a problem with medical doctors. I have to admit every article promotes the writer's agenda which is fine as long as it is backed up by supporting information. Stress is stress and health care workers often feel they have to be super performers while they are absorbing the stress of their patients.

In another article from a nursing newsletter, patients are "struggling" with their recovery from illness especially when stressed about their own jobs. We hope health care workers are doing better than the general population with stress mangement, but they are under extraordinary stress, as well, because they are dealing with everybody else's illnesses.

And, I've got one more article to share with you on this topic. Jack Stem, a peer assistance and wellness chairman works with nurses coping with addictions. He is the founder of Addiction Prevention Education Consulting Services (APECS)in Ohio. He can discuss very eloquently how it is a quiet problem slowly simmering into a possible addiction crisis in health care. CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE

What does this all mean? Stress is on everyone's mind. No one is immune. Wellness is recognized as an important topic and we all need ongoing support to keep us on track. Health Care Worker 911 is the kind of program that goes beyond health monitoring but wellness coaching for well life. A comitment to wellness goes a long way in keeping the health care worker on the job as well as preventing long term healh problems.

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How to save your health care workers

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