Wisconsin's Health Care Workforce Conditions Rebound in 2025

Frederica Freyberg:
Nursing shortages and addressing violence against health care workers are two points addressed in the Wisconsin Hospital Association’s 2025 Workforce Report. However, in a turn from recent years, the health care workforce is making gains slowly.

Ann Zenk:
We’ve actually upgraded our workforce condition in Wisconsin from critical but stable to serious but stable. We’ve made some real good gains in some professions, like certified nursing assistant, where we’re actually seeing vacancy rates go down. We’re also seeing improved retention. Less turnover really helps, not just in numbers but in expertise. In our annual workforce report, the last several years, we’ve talked about violence against health care workers. New data just out from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that despite great effort and partnerships between hospital leaders, their workforce, state policymakers, law enforcement that the incidents of intentional injury against health care workers by another person is actually higher. And so we need to continue every effort we can to report and take action on any incident that occurs. Wisconsin actually was the first in the nation to create an enhanced penalty – a class H felony – for violence against health care workers, and threats of violence. We have to grow the workforce faster, but with the demographic changes going on, it’s unlikely that our workforce will grow fast enough. So we’re asking for good health care policy that supports faster growth. Costs are rising, salaries are rising, supply costs are rising, and reimbursement, especially from Medicaid and Medicare, what we call government payers, is not keeping pace. So to support and sustain our workforce, we need better reimbursement.