Faced with a continued shortage of nurses and an over-reliance on traveling staff, Bryan Health has decided to tackle the issue head on, recently deciding to give large raises to its nursing staff.
Bryan did not make executives available for an interview but said in a statement that it raised base pay for its nurses anywhere from $3 to $10 an hour, depending on their roles, after an annual market analysis showed some pay rates had fallen behind competitors.
"During our annual analysis, we learned some ranges, specifically for bedside nursing, had moved out of market,"Â Bryan said in its statement, noting that the adjustment was an attempt to bring salaries more in line with market averages and also stay competitive with other similar-sized hospitals in the Midwest.
The pay boost was on top of the annual cost-of-living increase that Bryan gives its employees, which usually averages about 3%.
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Jeremy Nordquist, president of the Nebraska Hospital Association, said average pay for registered nurses working in the state's hospitals has risen 26.2% since the beginning of 2020 and is up 7.2% just in the past year.
Nordquist said the average hourly wage has gone from about $31 an hour before the pandemic to closer to $40 an hour now, which comes out to around $80,000 a year.
"The bottom line is hospitals need nurses to provide care. While these pay adjustments can be difficult to manage on tight hospital budgets, if Nebraska hospitals do not keep up with market rates, other states will be happy to hire our nurses away," he said.
Bryan isn't the only hospital raising pay. Nebraska Medicine in Omaha also gave its nurses an unscheduled pay boost earlier this year.
Chief Nursing Officer Kelly Vaughn said the hospital is offering other perks to nurses and other employees, too, including tuition reimbursement and student loan forgiveness.
Nordquist said most hospitals in Nebraska have recently provided extra pay raises to nurses and other staff on top of regularly scheduled raises to try to stay competitive.
Even with the large pay increases, staff nurses are still considerably less expensive than traveling nurses, who commanded an average weekly salary of $2,264 in Nebraska as of August, according to health care staffing company Vivian. Nebraska's rate was about the same as the national average.
Bryan said its nursing pay boost has helped it reduce its reliance on traveling staff. At its high point, the hospital system had 250 itinerant nurses working, and that number is now down to 178.
It said in its statement that it expects the increased nursing pay to have a positive financial effect because it will reduce the costs of hiring traveling nurses as well as the costs associated with employee turnover.
Unlike some of the state's smaller hospitals, Bryan has weathered the pandemic well financially.
According to its 2022 tax filing, the most recent one available, the health system had a net profit of nearly $91 million, which was down from 2020 and 2021 but comparable to 2019. Between 2019 and 2022, Bryan's salary costs increased from $220 million to $280 million, according to the filings.
Bryan also has maintained an AA- credit rating from both Fitch Ratings and Moody's, the highest rating it can get based on its size.
"We did not operate in the red like many other health systems across the country," Bryan said in its statement. "However, while trending in the right direction, our operating margin has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels. Traveler expense is a significant reason why."
Another benefit to the pay boost is improved recruiting.
Bryan said that in August, it had 245 applications for bedside nursing roles and hired 79 nurses, which was triple the number it hired in August 2023.
Still, the health system said its biggest issue has been "the lack of available nursing talent," which it said has "stymied some program development to meet the access demands of patients across Nebraska and neighboring states."
Nordquist said staffing continues to be an issue statewide, with hospitals reporting anywhere from 11%-17% vacancy levels among nursing staff, a total shortfall of nearly 6,000 nurses.
"Hospitals across Nebraska continue to navigate a very challenging workforce landscape," he said, one that's not likely to improve any time soon.
"The health care workforce crisis is going to get worse before it gets better," Nordquist said. "Nearly 20% of nurses in Nebraska are over the age of 60, while the need to provide care to an aging population is growing."