Health Care and the Economy

The difficult economy has changed the face of the national health care workforce.  Senior nurses are returning to work, and applications to nursing schools and allied health programs are skyrocketing.  These highly qualified applicants are seeking a career in the stable, “economically immune” health care field. 

It is true that careers in health care are exceedingly rewarding, stable and come with an infinite number of opportunities.  But contrary to popular belief, no industry is immune to economic changes and pressures.  Health care organizations feel the pain just like most every other industry in this country.  For example, the state budget pressures in 2009 resulted in significant cuts to Medicaid, state employee plans, prisoner health care reimbursement and other state controlled programs.  These changes affect hundreds of thousands of people throughout North Carolina – and not just those on Medicaid or in the prison system. These changes have a trickle-down effect and impact the services health care organizations are able to provide.  

Reimbursement cuts have required WakeMed to make tough decisions in order maintain an acceptable margin so we can continue to live up to our long-standing mission.  Already a lean, efficient organization, we’ve scaled back some services, lost some good workers, delayed construction on certain projects and temporarily reduced some staff benefits.  Partially due to these tough cuts, we ended the fiscal year in a sound financial position and were even able to reward our workers through a payout via our WakeShare (gain-sharing) program. In fact, this represents the sixth year in a row that WakeMed has been in a position to issue WakeShare. Very few hospitals or health care systems in North Carolina have a similar program or record in this regard.

But, we have learned that we cannot be all things to all people and still remain a flexible institution. We need to start looking to our own community — and all health care providers in the county — to help address community issues in a truly meaningful way.  WakeMed has traditionally done much of the heavy lifting by hospitals in Wake County – and we’re happy to continue to do the hard work, but we cannot  continue to do it generally alone.