As Missouri hospitals struggle with COVID-19, Gov. Parson hires firm to boost staffing
As Missouri hospitals struggle to respond to a wave of COVID-19 patients that drove admissions to record highs in recent days, Gov. Mike Parson plans a new push to bring more medical workers into the state amid staffing shortages.
Missouri is hiring Vizient, a Texas-based healthcare performance improvement company, to add up to 760 additional nurses, respiratory therapists and certified nurse assistants for hospitals over the next 12 weeks. The announcement comes as COVID-19 hospitalizations remain at near-record levels in Missouri, according to data compiled by the COVID-19 Tracking Project.
Staffing shortages limit hospital capacity by reducing the number of patients that can be attended to safely. Parson emphasized that while Missouri as a whole has enough beds, the state doesn’t have enough doctors and nurses to staff them.
“We are hopeful that this will provide meaningful support for our hospitals and the people of Missouri,” Parson said at a news conference in Jefferson City.
The program will be funded by federal COVID-19 relief aid through the end of the year. Hospitals will pick up costs in 2021, Parson said. He was unable to say how much the program would cost.
Missouri Hospital Association President and CEO Herb Kuhn described the program as a “bridge” to support care for all patients, not just those with COVID-19. He added that it will reduce the chances that hospitals will be overwhelmed by a surge in the weeks and months ahead.
“These extra-skilled caregivers are essential to addressing the staff shortages that are presenting a critical threat to hospital capacity,” Kuhn said.
It wasn’t immediately clear how Vizient will procure hundreds of healthcare workers for Misosuri at a time when hospitals across the entire country are struggling with COVID-19. A statement from Parson’s office said the company would deploy the workers “through its contracted agencies” to facilities around the state.
Kuhn said Vizient would be looking across the country, but acknowledged he didn’t know where the workers would be coming from.
Missouri on Tuesday reported 2,599 current hospitalizations. While that’s below a late November peak of 2,851, it’s still far above the 1,400 or so COVID-19 patients the state was reporting before hospitalizations began rapidly climbing in late October.
Across the Kansas City metro area, only 13 percent of staffed intensive care unit beds were available on Tuesday, according to data from the Kansas Hospital Association looking at both sides of the state line. Nearly half of hospitals in the region reported anticipating staffing shortages over the next week.
“While cases numbers may have dipped slightly, the strain on our hospitals and healthcare workers has not,” Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said Wednesday.
In Missouri, health officials and hospital leaders have been urging Parson for weeks to implement a statewide mask mandate, something the governor has time and again said he won’t do. In Kansas, which has a statewide mandate counties can opt out of, counties with mask orders cut the number of new cases while cases grew in those without, a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found.
The White House Coronavirus Task Force is also urging Missouri to strengthen its public health orders.
In the lead up to Thanksgiving, Parson repeatedly urged residents to take personal responsibility and precautions, including wearing a mask and social distancing. But health leaders fear last week’s holiday gatherings may soon yield a new spike in infections and, in time, more hospitalizations and deaths.
“Although it is impossible to predict the impact of the Thanksgiving holiday and the holidays in December will have on hospitals’ ability to manage the surge, the early indicators are somewhat troubling,” Kuhn said.
Parson, who appeared at the news conference with Kuhn, started the event by thanking Missourians for “taking heed” of warnings against big holiday gatherings. Later, Kuhn said data showed Missourians traveled more than average ahead of Thanksgiving, which he called “a bit of a concern” and said the next two weeks will be critical.
“That’s why this announcement today is so important, so impactful, so helpful,” Kuhn said.
Any new wave of patients would only push hospitals, which have been strained for weeks, closer to the edge.
Parson’s initiative comes as governors in other states, such as Wisconsin and Nebraska, are making it easier for retired nurses to come back, including by waiving licensing requirements and fees.
The Star’s Robert Cronkleton and the Associated Press contributed to this report
