Facing steep growth in demand, constant turnover and employee retirements, Alaska’s health care industry has a staggering need for workers, a new report says.
“To meet those variables, we have to find over 9,400 new health care workers every single year,” Jared Kosin, executive director of the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association, said last month.
The numbers Kosin presented at the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce meeting on Jan. 27 were from his association’s newly released analysis of Alaska’s health care workforce. The report, by Juneau-based Rain Coast Data, was the latest in a series of annual workforce studies commissioned by the association.
Much of the workforce — particularly registered nurses — come from out of state, either new residents or temporary residents of Alaska.
“Registered nurses represent Alaska’s largest health care workforce category and have one of the highest nonresidency rates of any health care position, at 20%,” the report said.
Half of the registered nurses with SEARHC in Wrangell in 2022 were new or nonresidents, according to the latest state Department of Labor statistics available for the Rain Coast Data report. The state based its numbers on whether the employees received a 2022 Alaska Permanent Fund dividend, which is available only to residents of at least one full year.
Wrangell’s number was comparable to the Ketchikan Gateway Borough RN number of 44% new or nonresidents, 54% in Bethel and 51% in Dillingham. Petersburg, at 14%, and Juneau, at 20%, were among the lowest in the state.
SEARHC declined to provide the number of RNs employed at its Wrangell operations, or how many traveling nurses work at the facilities.
“While we don’t share specific employment data as a matter of policy, I can offer a general overview,” Matt Carle, senior system director of brand identity, the Healing Hand Foundation and tribal relations at SEARHC, said in an email last month. “A portion of our workforce resides in the community full time, with additional support provided by locums and travel staff to help meet essential care needs.”
The health care provider listed eight job openings in Wrangell as of Feb. 4 — none for registered nurses.
“Our job openings fluctuate, but we actively recruit for positions in Wrangell and have successfully brought in talent to strengthen our team,” Carle wrote.
Kosin characterized the Alaska health care workforce situation as a good news-bad news story.
“I’m like, ‘Hey, we have these opportunities. We have jobs open now!’ Exclamation point. Challenges: We have jobs open now! Exclamation point,” he said in his presentation. “Something that’s so great and so opportunistic is also one of our biggest challenges, because we can’t fill all these jobs.”
The report quantified the health care industry’s economic heft in Alaska.
It is the state’s largest employer, with more than 44,000 workers representing 11% of Alaska’s jobs, according to the report. Their total $3.4 billion in wages amount to 13% of those earned in the state, according to the report.
Wage growth since 2016 has been 47%, well above the statewide wage growth over the same period of about 26%, Kosin said. That growth in wages was probably influenced by the dire needs created by the COVID-19 pandemic, he noted.
As demand for health care grows, the biggest single need is for registered nurses, Kosin said in his presentation. Of the more than 9,400 new workers that Alaska needs each year, 1,400 are registered nurses.
For now, the supply of nurses and other health care workers is not close to meeting that demand, especially for those educated and trained in Alaska, according to the workforce report.
An expected 346 new registered nurses are expected to be trained in Alaska this year, less than a quarter of the number of new nurses the state needs this year. The number of newly trained nursing aides in Alaska will be only half the total needed.
And only 11 new Alaska-trained certified medical aides are expected this year, a tiny fraction of the 755 expected to be needed, according to the report.
Alaska’s aging population, reflected in the decline of working-age residents, will also affect health care workforce needs, Kosin said.
There will be a decided shift to the long-term and in-home services that the elderly need, he said, making traditional hospital care less prominent.
There is already a mismatch between available facilities and services and the long-term care that is needed, Kosin said. Surveys of association members have revealed that one out of every seven occupied hospital beds is now being used by patients who no longer need hospitalization — but who have nowhere else to go to get continuing care over the longer term, he said.
Those extended stays range from 30 days to six months, amounting to over 43,000 of what are known as “avoidable days” and $188 million in costs, he said.
“You have these people that literally do not need to be there and yet they’re in the most expensive environment of care,” he said. At some point, insurance, Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement will no longer cover the costs, he said.
The Sentinel contributed reporting for this story. The Alaska Beacon is an independent, donor-funded news organization. Alaskabeacon.com.
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