New York City Health + Hospitals has steadily increased its number of full-time nurses to reduce exorbitant spending on temporary staff, but overspending is still an issue for the public health system.
H+H has hired 850 full-time nurses since new union contracts brought pay up to private sector levels, said John Ulberg, chief financial officer of H+H, at a City Council budget hearing on Tuesday.
“Because we got that nurse contract signed and achieved nurse parity, we have now been extremely successful in hiring nurses who work for H+H,” Dr. Mitchell Katz, CEO and president of the health system, said at the hearing.
Efforts to hire a swath of full-time nurses come on the heels of a plan outlined in October to reduce reliance on agency staff. H+H still has between 800 and 900 temporary nurses on staff, a number that is “decreasing every week” as new full-time nurses come out of training, Katz added.
Agency nurses still account for about 10% of H+H’s roughly 8,800 registered nurses as of the second quarter of the 2024 fiscal year.
Last year, H+H spent around $150 million in additional temporary staffing expenses that were not included in the budget, Ulberg said.
H+H is aiming to reduce the number of temporary nurses it works with to 330 by the end of the 2025 fiscal year, according to its plan. The health system’s budget for travel nurses has remained flat as it continues to recruit new nurses, funding 330 temporary positions.
City council members questioned public hospital system leaders about the use of temporary staffing following exorbitant spending on travel nurses in recent years. H+H spent at least $2 billion on temporary staff including nurses during the Covid-19 pandemic, attracting the attention of fiscal watchdogs to monitor the health system’s spending.
The public hospital system’s preliminary financial plan outlines a $3 billion budget for the 2025 fiscal year, roughly 3% of the city’s total budget. H+H projects a positive $69 million operating income in 2024, but estimates that it will operate in the red by $51 million in 2025 and continue to post losses in the following years.
While the health system’s preliminary financial plan includes strategies to increase revenue and reduce spending, H+H still anticipates an operating loss in Fiscal 2025 from temporary staffing and delayed federal aid, the health system said in budget documents.
H+H has 11 hospitals that have a collective 5,000 beds. The public hospital system also has post-acute and long-term care centers, diagnostic treatment centers and 70 community health clinics in New York City.
Amanda D'Ambrosio , 2024-03-06 10:33:05
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