Temporary Staff Key to Addressing Healthcare Staffing Crisis

By Kyle Murphy, PhD

January 04, 2022 - Temporary medical professionals are helping the healthcare industry paper over the cracks caused by the pandemic's strain on providers, putting in doubt the industry's ability to restore equilibrium.

Nearly All Healthcare Facilities Relied on Temporary Staff

According to an AMN Healthcare survey, 96 percent of healthcare facilities hired temporary health professionals in the last 12 months to combat the shortage of permanent healthcare workers.

The healthcare staffing company surveyed the use of temporary allied healthcare professionals at 204 healthcare facilities, including 159 hospitals during the last 12 months. Seventy-five percent of healthcare facility managers responding to the survey indicated that they are seeking temporary allied healthcare professionals. Most respondents — 73 percent —said filling gaps for vacancies caused by staff departures is the primary reason for the use of temporary allied healthcare professionals.

The findings suggest the underlining harmful impact COVID-19 has on employee morale and wellbeing. Burnout and turnover among healthcare workers have increased in several months.

The Labor Bureau stated that 589,000 healthcare workers quit their jobs in September 2021, creating a new record of a 35 percent voluntary attrition rate. READ MORE

Cancer Patients with High-Deductible Plans Face Higher Costs

Patients with new cancer diagnoses who were enrolled in a high deductible health plan experienced significantly higher out-of-pocket healthcare costs compared to patients with traditional insurance, a study published in JAMA Network Open found.

To understand how high-deductible health plans impact out-of-pocket spending for patients with cancer diagnoses, researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System analyzed member claims from a single national payer.

Patients with colorectal cancer who were in a high deductible health plan paid up to $865 more per month in out-of-pocket costs than those enrolled in a traditional plan, researchers found. Patients with breast cancer paid $860 more per month, patients with lung cancer paid $655 more per month, and patients with other types of cancer paid $292 more per month than their counterparts in traditional health plans.

Additionally, during the year after their cancer diagnoses, patients with cancer who were enrolled in high deductible health plans had out-of-pocket costs ranging up to $1,975 while patients with cancer in traditional plans only paid $160. READ MORE

Biogen Plans to Halve the Cost of Controversial Alzheimer’s Drug

Biogen recently announced that it will reduce the wholesale acquisition cost (WAC) of its Alzheimer’s disease treatment, Aduhelm, in the US by nearly 50 percent.

At the beginning of June, FDA officially approved Aduhelm, marking the first Alzheimer’s drug approval in nearly 20 years and the first to address cognitive decline in patients with the illness. But the drug came with an annual cost of $56,000 per patient, a non-retail expenditure that mainly affected Medicare Part B.

The reduced price of the drug takes into consideration the questions raised about this first class of therapies, the potentially eligible population, and revised pharmacoeconomic assumptions. The company assumes that with insurance coverage, access to diagnostics, and specialized centers, about 50,000 patients may initiate treatment with Aduhelm in 2022.

“Over the past several months, we have listened to the feedback of our stakeholders, and we are now taking important actions to improve patient access to ADUHELM,” Michel Vounatsos, CEO of Biogen, said in the announcement. READ MORE

Wearables Show Potential Benefits for Addressing Opioid Use

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Syracuse University and SUNY Upstate Medical University have collaborated to create a wireless sensor designed to prevent opioid relapses and overdoses.

The research team — headed by Tauhidur Rahman, PhD, an assistant professor in the College of Information and Computer Sciences at UMass Amherst and co-director of the MOSAIC Lab — is developing a sensor, which will use machine learning to pinpoint psychophysiological signs in real time and determine whether they are consistent with opioid cravings. Cravings are one of the main drivers behind relapses and overdoses.

If a craving is identified, the sensor providers the user with mindfulness-based interventions. These ultimately could be customized based on the user’s behaviors and clinician input.

The sensor already appears to be effective at identifying opioid use through physiological signals. The researchers recently conducted a study and published their findings in Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies. READ MORE

Genetic Mutation Identified as Origin of Common Ovarian Cancer

Cedars Sinai scientists have found the origins of a common ovarian cancer by modeling fallopian tube tissue, allowing physicians to determine how genetic mutations increase an individual’s risk of cancer. Through the created tissue, scientists can predict patients who may develop ovarian cancer, allowing for early detection and prevention strategies.

In the study, the research team generated induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs). The researchers started with blood samples taken from two groups of women: young ovarian cancer patients who had the BRCA-1 mutation and a control group of healthy women. The team then used IPSCs to create organoids modeling the lining of fallopian tubes and compared the organoids in the two groups.

“We were surprised to find multiple cellular pathologies consistent with cancer development only in the organoids from the BRCA-1 patients,” said Nur Yucer, PhD, a project scientist in Svendsen’s lab and first author of the study. “Organoids derived from women with the most aggressive ovarian cancer displayed the most severe organoid pathology.” READ MORE

Debate Surrounds Use of Race in Patient Risk Assessments

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine are questioning whether race should be a part of patient risk assessment or if risk models should include other social determinants of health factors instead.

The research, published in Lancet Digital Health, found that patient race alone can alter a patient’s risk score enough that a provider would change her care management plan. Said otherwise, one White and one Black patient could have identical risk factors, but the Black patient would be determined as higher risk for certain illnesses simply because he is Black.

BUSM researchers contended that it is not race, but rather social determinants of health and institutional racism, that account for these differences. The Black patient in the example above wouldn’t have a higher risk score because he is Black; it could be because he experiences different social determinants of health, experiences racism in medicine, or he may not have any actual difference in risk at all. But by including his Black race as a risk factor, BUSM researchers said he might get different, biased treatment from his clinician. READ MORE

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