The tech world is increasingly appealing to healthcare workers who are burnt out and seeking flexibility in their careers.

In a recent Healthcare Brew survey of 1,100 healthcare professionals, 70% said they’d consider leaving the traditional medical field (i.e., hospitals, clinics, pharmacies) to work at a healthcare-centric tech company.

The healthcare industry is already experiencing widespread staffing shortages: In 2022, 145,213 healthcare workers left the medical field, according to the latest data from healthcare analytics firm Definitive Healthcare. Looking ahead, consulting firm Mercer projects that 510,000 healthcare positions may be unstaffed by 2026.

Worker retention is increasingly important—but how so? “I think it’s dangerous for healthcare groups to continue to rely on [the idea that] our nurses, our physicians, our techs want to do this work because they care about people,” Jennifer Hammond, managing director of consulting firm Huron’s healthcare practice, told Healthcare Brew. “Of course they do, but they also care about solving problems […] and the tech groups right now are very appealing because they are actually solving things.”

Keep reading here.—MA

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In future Covid-19 booster rollouts, providers may be administering nasal sprays instead of vaccines in the arm.

Researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have developed a nasal spray that helped protect mice and hamsters against a Covid infection and reduce airborne transmission in preclinical trials, according to the study published on November 6.

“We continue to hear about new variants, and new waves of Covid-19, and to prevent this, we need a vaccine that is easy to administer and can prevent transmission,” Xiaoping Zhu, the study’s lead author and UMD veterinary medicine professor, said in a statement. “This nasal vaccine prevents virus transmission and can be easily adapted for new variants.”

Keep reading here.—KW

Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare is eyeing two new laws that it anticipates could affect future hospital expenses.

Tenet, which operates 61 hospitals and about 590 outpatient centers and other facilities in the US, anticipates that California’s 2024 healthcare wage increase and Florida’s reimbursement rates for medical damages could lead to rising costs in the upcoming years, Tenet EVP and CFO Dan Cancelmi told investors last month.

“The new regulations related to workers’ compensation and personal injury reimbursement in Florida, and healthcare wages in California, represent around $100 million in headwinds in aggregate,” Cancelmi said during the Q3 2023 earnings call.

Last month, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law to increase the minimum wage for healthcare workers in the state from $15.50 to a maximum of $25 an hour over the next decade, the Associated Press reported. Tenet operates 66 facilities in California.

Keep reading here.—KW

Today’s top healthcare reads.

Stat: About 50,000 pregnant people are in Gaza, and more than 160 patients are expected to give birth on any given day, according to a November 3 estimate. (Time)

Quote: “We went to an office that we thought was safe. That was going to protect us. We paid a lot of money and look what’s happening.”—A patient, who had her personal information stolen, on her plastic surgeon’s office getting hacked (KLAS)

Read: Even with health insurance, many adults in the US report that they can’t receive the healthcare they need. (CBS News)

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