The number of nursing positions that are open and unfilled in St. Louis is slightly higher than the statewide rate, according to a new study.
The 2022 Missouri Hospital Association (MHA) Workforce Report found that the statewide vacancy rate is 19.8% compared to 20.3% in St. Louis.
"St. Louis is well-positioned to tackle this challenge," said Dave Dillon, MHA spokesman. "It will be more difficult for rural parts of the state to address some of the RN challenges because they may not have the higher education institutions, the high population, or the strong community individuals who want to come back and serve. that's the ideal model."
Some 33,692 staff registered nurses work in hospitals statewide and 8,334 positions are listed as vacant.
"There were individuals who left the workforce in St. Louis hospitals who may have moved to do agency work for a traveling nurse agency and we suspect that those numbers also include people who have decided after two years of very hard work that they're either leaving the profession or they're using their RN credential differently,” Dillon told the St. Louis Record.
The annual report also found that the category of certified respiratory therapist is the highest employee vacancy followed by medical laboratory technician and licensed practical nurse.
“There is a factor of the way that treatments for COVID were done that created a lot more demand for services that were related to it since we're talking about a respiratory disease,” Dillon said. “It does take a therapist to monitor someone on a respirator if they ended up on a ventilator.”
At 22.1%, churn in St. Louis matched nursing turnover statewide with nurse assistants leading the list of top ten followed by dietary aids and housekeepers, according to the data.
“It’s troubling because it's costly for a number of reasons,” Dillon said. “You have to find the workers who can make up the difference when someone leaves and then when you can hire them but then there are the cultural factors. There is a lot of cost to acclimatizing someone to how your operation works.”
As previously reported in the St. Louis Record, lawmakers approved a state budget on May 13 that allocated $7 million to help train more nurses.
“We have people who are skilled who are probably underutilized and we need to utilize them more as part of team-based care,” Dillon added. “We need to invest more in some of these other peripheral to bedside care positions that support bedside care.