Professional Development: What is Your Plan for Sustainability?

If you are in a leadership position in the healthcare environment today, you are no stranger to the issues surrounding staffing shortages. With a lack of qualified applicants and high turnover rates, ensuring safe staffing coverage can seem like an ongoing vicious cycle to many department leaders serving in the healthcare industry today. How are you managing this issue in your facility?

Finding and recruiting new qualified personnel is a never-ending task. Not only must you find individuals who meet educational requirements to fulfill their job duties, but it is also important to ensure that new team members are competent to fulfill the positions for which they were fired. One of the biggest challenges is that healthcare personnel who are well-experienced in their fields are in high demand.

If you are fortunate enough to have these well qualified individuals on your team, it may only be temporary. There is a tremendous amount of recruiting activity happening in the healthcare industry incentivizing your hard-working skilled team members to consider other high-paying positions which include sign on bonuses, generous PTO and benefits packages, continuing education compensation and paid relocation expenses.

It is hard to imagine when or even if this staffing crisis will ever go away. In the interim, high turnover rates and training cost for new staff. “The average cost of turnover for a staff RN increased by 7.5% in the past year to $56,300, with a range of $45,100 to $67,500. The average time to recruit an experienced RN ranges from 59 to 109 days, with the average for 2023 sitting at 86 days - nine days quicker than the year prior” (Beckers, 2024). This budget busting trend has CFO’s struggling to manipulate day-to-day operational costs along with unanticipated overhead costs to account for the onboarding of new staff in because of high turnover rates.

With no immediate resolution to this post-pandemic staffing crisis. Healthcare leaders are hard pressed to find safe and timely solutions. Many rely on high priced staffing agencies to fill immediate needs. We recommend looking within for highly motivated professionals who may already be a part of your team. Mentoring and training novice individuals may be a great way to combat future staffing issues. Now, more than ever, is the time to rethink recruitment strategies. Spending countless hours, not to mention cost, to recruit experienced help can be futile. Redirecting recruitments efforts to promoting from within may just be the future to sustainment and succession planning.

Our HCE Global experts understand the challenges that healthcare facilities are facing today. We are here to help. We offer a variety of professional development services to help grow your novice professionals into industry experts. Using a customizable approach, we will help you navigate through even the toughest of challenges. We pride ourselves on helping our clients achieve and maintain a status of excellence in the healthcare industry.

Be sure to browse Our Website for a full list of services we provide.

Contact us today at (800) 813-7117 to schedule a free consultation.

< Older Post

Newer Post >

Woman sitting at a desk, holding her shoulder while working on a laptop in a bright room.

Safe Patient Handling, Mobility, and Workplace Safety: Merging OSHA Mandates with CMS Quality Outcomes

June 4, 2026

OSHA's General Duty Clause and Ergonomic Risks Under Section 5(a)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (the General Duty Clause), healthcare employers are legally required to provide a work environment free from recognized hazards that cause or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm. Manual patient lifting, transferring, and repositioning represent significant ergonomic hazards. OSHA actively inspects healthcare systems for musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and mandates that hospitals implement engineered control solutions, such as ceiling lifts, sit-to-stand devices, and friction-reducing slide sheets.

Mitigating Electrical and Fire Risks in High-Acuity Care: NFPA 99 & Accrediting Body Imperatives

May 5, 2026

The Technical Baseline: NFPA 99 Health Care Facilities Code NFPA 99 (2012 Edition, as mandated by CMS) establishes risk-based categories for electrical and gas systems based on the risk to patients. Category 1 spaces are those where procedures are performed that could result in major injury or death if utility systems fail. Under Chapter 6 (Electrical Systems), facilities must maintain isolated power systems (IPS) and line isolation monitors (LIM) in wet procedure locations to protect patients against electrical shock. Survey Vulnerabilities: CIHQ and Joint Commission Directives During surveys, both TJC and CIHQ closely inspect the testing logs for these specialized electrical environments. TJC Standard EC.02.05.01 requires facilities to manage utility risks, specifically focusing on the routine inspection of ground- fault circuit interrupters (GFCIs) and the regular calibration of LIM alarms. CIHQ surveyors frequently evaluate surgical staff on their understanding of the LIM panel: if an alarm sounds, do clinicians know that it signifies a critical loss of electrical isolation that could cause patient harm if a second fault occurs? OSHA 29 CFR § 1910 Subpart S Alignment While NFPA 99 protects the patient, OSHA Subpart S (Electrical Safety) safeguards the clinical staff operating the machinery. Employers must ensure all electrical medical devices are free from recognized hazards. Exposed wiring, unapproved extension cords, or failing to lock out/tag out malfunctioning medical hardware violates OSHA standards and places both employees and patients at immediate risk.

Red fire alarm box on a white hallway wall with a long corridor in the background

The Intersection of Clinical Quality & Environment of Care: Aligning CMS, AOs, and NFPA 101

April 4, 2026

CMS Conditions of Participation (CoPs) and the Unified Focus The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) establishes the baseline for safety through the Conditions of Participation (CoPs). Under 42 CFR § 482.41 (Physical Environment), hospitals must ensure that the physical plant is constructed, arranged, and maintained to secure the safety of patients. CMS holds leadership strictly accountable for ensuring that life safety deficiencies do not interfere with clinical intervention. When a surveyor enters a facility, they cross- reference the clinical patient logs with facility maintenance schedules to ensure environment-driven risks—such as positive/negative pressure room failures—did not impact immunosuppressed patients. Accrediting Bodies: CIHQ, Joint Commission and Other Aos’ Interventions Accrediting organizations like The Joint Commission (TJC) and the Center for Improvement in Healthcare Quality (CIHQ) act as the enforcement arms for CMS via deemed status. TJC’s Environment of Care (EC) and Life Safety (LS) chapters explicitly detail how physical space directly impacts clinical delivery. For instance, TJC Standard EC.02.03.05 requires hospitals to maintain and test fire protection and suppression systems, mapping directly back to Life Safety Code compliance. Simultaneously, CIHQ’s structural surveys place massive emphasis on a unified environment. CIHQ approaches physical plant standards as a direct extension of standard clinical operations. They emphasize that blocked egress corridors or improperly stored medical equipment don't just constitute technical facility violations; they are direct barriers to rapid code-blue response and emergency patient evacuations.