Millions of patients receive care in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), including both long-term residents and short-stay patients recovering after hospitalization. Staffing challenges following COVID-19 have made turnover a major concern, especially among nursing staff, as it is linked to poorer patient outcomes and has become a focus of federal quality programs. However, far less is…
Healthcare and behavioral health professionals employed by local, state, and federal governments are essential to maintaining public health infrastructure, ensuring access to care, and responding to emergencies. Despite their importance, limited research has examined how recent policy, budgetary, and labor market changes are influencing their employment stability and retention within government sectors. This article uses…
Telehealth use in long-term care (LTC) facilities expanded rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic following Medicare policy changes in March 2020. Utilization has remained above pre-pandemic levels, but research has focused primarily on physicians, leaving gaps in the understanding of nurses’ roles and experiences. Nurses, including nurse practitioners (NPs) and certified nursing assistants (CNAs), are central…
The HWRCs’ 2025 Annual Report captures the work conducted by the federally-funded HWRCs throughout the past year. This report documents a year of impactful research and collaborative problem-solving aimed at ensuring the US health workforce is well-prepared, well-distributed, and equipped to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.
To address growing demand and make certain that individuals can access timely healthcare, it is essential to maintain an adequate supply of health professionals. An evenly distributed health workforce helps ensure that healthcare services are available across all states in the US, especially in rural and underserved communities. This data dashboard uses data from the…
Community Health Centers (CHCs) serve nearly 1 in 6 Medicaid enrollees and provide perinatal care to about 560,000 people, playing a critical role in prenatal and postpartum care for disadvantaged populations. While 41% of CHCs—often larger centers with multidisciplinary teams—offer prenatal care to higher proportions of non-White or non-English-speaking patients, little is known about the…
This webinar features 2 presentations highlighting the important roles of nurses in public health and long-term care settings. Paula Kett and Betty Bekemeier provide a timely discussion about the current state of public health nursing workforce research, sharing insights from their own work on improving measurement of the workforce. Joanne Spetz complements this discussion with…
This webinar will address the growing challenge of nurse retention in healthcare and its impact on care quality, workforce sustainability, and organizational performance. Attendees will explore current trends in nurse turnover, key contributing factors—including burnout, workplace violence, and staffing ratios—and the financial and operational costs of high attrition. The session will highlight evidence-based retention strategies…
As healthcare systems grapple with persistent workforce shortages, artificial intelligence is emerging as both a potential solution and a source of disruption. This webinar will examine how AI is reshaping job roles, automating tasks, and influencing demand for different types of workers across the health care sector. We’ll explore what these changes mean for employment,…
This webinar presents findings from 2 studies that use data from the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses to examine how the pandemic affected nursing turnover between 2018 and 2022. Dr. Kyla Woodward investigates trends within the registered nurse workforce, and Dr. Esita Patel focuses on nurse practitioners. Together, these studies explore the reasons nurses…
