JOB Fair: This Saturday, March 25!
Do you have friends and family who are looking for work? SHARE encourages you to let them know about UMass Memorial’s job fair this Saturday, March 25, from 10am-2pm at the Church of the Pentecost, 41 Providence Street, Worcester. The hospital’s event emphasizes the value of the local Ghanaian community to our hospital community, but all job-seekers are welcome. See this flyer for more details.
In the News: The Staffing Shortage
As you know, SHARE members are feeling the burden of the healthcare staffing shortage . . . especially due to short-staffing in their departments. This article from GBH News points out that “Massachusetts hospitals paid a staggering $1.52 billion last year to hire temporary hospital workers, mostly ‘travel nurses,’ amid a labor shortage that contributed to record financial losses for many institutions.” The article cites UMass Memorial’s own CFO, vice president and treasurer, Sergio Melgar; among other things, he says that our hospital ”went into FY 2022 with 600 open jobs, and filling those vacancies with temporary workers was expensive. In some cases, he said, traveling workers were paid triple times the cost of pre-COVID rates.”
UNit Based TEams: Learning from Each Other
At the beginning of March, three dozen Unit Based Team (UBT) Co-Leads and Co-Sponsors joined together for a monthly Peer-Learning event. Participants learned about a useful project at Hahnemann Internal Medicine (see below). They also learned that researchers from Rutgers University are working to understand the impact that UBTs have on frontline work and workers, as well as how to convert an Idea Board idea into a UBT project. Plus! UBT leaders discussed ideas for the upcoming SHARE UBT Fair on May 10th. Everyone is invited. Keep your eyes peeled for more details about that!
Hahnemann Internal Medicine and the Book of Knowledge: it may sound like a novel in the Harry Potter series, but the Unit Based Team in Hahnemann Internal Medicine has created a way to make everyday information — as well as not-so-frequently-asked questions — easily accessible to the staff there. It’s saving SHARE members time and headaches, and could be a useful example for other departments. Learn more about what they've done.
KRONOS Update
SHARE Organizers met again with executive leadership of UMass Memorial for an update about what’s gotten back to normal, and what hasn’t yet, since the international Kronos cyber-attack. The short version:
Underpayment discrepancies due to Kronos have now all been processed
Overpayment recoupment is likely to begin in March
Paid Time Off/Earned Time is believed now to be correct in your bank
For all the details, see the full Kronos update post on the SHARE blog.
