Healthcare staffing

While overall physician pay has remained fairly level, a small handful of specialties saw double-digit increases in pay, according to this year's edition of an annual survey by compensation consultants Sullivan, Cotter and Associates. According to the study, which surveyed 264 healthcare organizations, neurosurgeons enjoyed a dramatic jump in overall cash compensation between 2004 and 2006, with totals climbing 28.1 percent during that period. Compensation for pathology (25.6 percent), …

If you're a healthcare employer, you're less likely to have your act together. That's the unflattering conclusion drawn by research on the leadership and management style of U.S. healthcare providers. Right now, job vacancy rates across the healthcare industry are the highest of any major U.S. industry, running at 3.7 percent, according to stats collected by HR research and …

The University of South Florida College of Nursing has kicked off a program intended to increase the number of minorities entering teaching with a doctoral degree. To accomplish its goals, USF is working with historically black colleges across Florida. Five nursing instructors from Bethune-Cookman College joined USF's Doctorate of Nursing Practice program this semester, according to the Tampa Bay Business Journal. The program is funded by a $450,838 extension of a $1.28 …

The National Labor Relations Board has found that Sutter Roseville Medical Center must pay workers back wages interest after locking them out for four days in 2002. The ruling upholds the decision made by an administrative law judge in 2004. The NLRB finding will affect about 450 workers, each of whom should get an average of $444, for a total payout of about $200,000, according to The Sacramento Bee. Workers, including nurses and operating room techs, had staged a …

A recent survey by consultants Watson Wyatt Worldwide and the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration (ASHHRA) has confirmed what you already knew--keeping critical-skill workers on board is a tremendous challenge. Of the 110 providers who responded to the survey, 69 percent said they're having moderate or great difficulty holding on to critical staffers such as registered nurses. Keeping nurses on board was the providers' biggest concern, with 83 percent naming it …

Only a week after the National Labor Relations Board issued a ruling broadening the definition of the term "supervisor," the decision has already thrown a wrench into contract talks between a Pennsylvania hospital and its nurses. The NLRB decision held that health care institutions can classify nurses as supervisors, denying them the right to union representation, if their duties …

Today, nurses and other caregivers represented by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) plan to take to the streets of downtown Los Angeles to protest a recent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling which they say unfairly brands many in their ranks as supervisors. Earlier this week we reported that the NLRB handed down a ruling which held that, among other things, some charge nurses can legally be treated as …

In a move likely to spark nationwide RN protests, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has found that permanent charge nurses at Taylor, MI-based Oakwood Heritage Hospital were indeed supervisors, making those nurses and others like them ineligible for union representation. In two other related cases regarding the Golden Crest Healthcare Center nursing home and manufacturer Croft Metals, the board found that the employees in question were not supervisors. While the NLRB found that …

The word is on the street today that a new NLRB ruling will broaden the legal definition of the term "supervisor," a move nursing activists claim is a tactic designed to bust unionization in their ranks. The NRLB has not officially released its ruling on the Oakwood Healthcare case, the most prominent of several pending cases touching on the right of RNs and other workers to …

A study released by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) finds that primary care physicians' pay has increased 3.89 percent in 2005, while specialists saw a 6.61 percent increase in the last year. And in case you're wondering which specialties saw the most growth, anesthesiologists' compensation rose 10.3 percent to $359,699 and emergency medicine doctors' salaries were up 9.8 percent to $243,449.

The MGMA observes that primary care physicians' compensation is not in …