About White Memorial
Building a Stronger Workforce
WMMC employs registered nurses, licensed vocational nurses and nurse assistants, along with resident physicians and administrative and support staff covering a wide variety of skills needed to run a hospital effectively. Our highly qualified nurses and patient care staff play a key role at the hospital and are the heart of our quality care.
Employing Nurses and Allied Health Professionals in Today’s Market
There
is a shortage of about 30,000 nurses in California, plus
many more allied health professionals. This makes it difficult
to recruit and retain quality patient care staff. The nearly
6,000 nursing students graduating yearly, along with the
number of nurses relocating to California, are not enough
to offset this worsening crisis. To fill vacancies and meet
state-mandated staffing ratios, hospitals throughout California
are temporarily staffing positions with in-state contract
nurses, as well as out-of-state nurses who travel to California
for months at a time.
At WMMC, we recognize the need to invest in long-term solutions, such as providing support for nursing education and scholarship programs. For example, in 2006 we continued to grow our RN Residency Program, which graduated 54 nurses and contributed to an overall decrease in our vacancy and turnover rates (read more about our investment in local capacity building and employment). Continuing to address this critical challenge is a shared responsibility that requires the commitment and collaboration of several key players in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors.
Community Employment
About
one third of our workforce lives within our service area.
We are committed to hiring more employees from our community.
To do so, we plan to invest in additional training programs
so potential candidates have the appropriate skills to be
eligible for open positions. In 2006 we received a $1 million
grant from Bank of America to do just that (read
more about our investment in local capacity building and
employment). We recognize that we can’t do this
alone, so we partner with community-based organizations to
help build local capacity and encourage fair and equitable
economic growth in our neighborhood.
