Report: Nurse staffing shortages cost New York City public hospitals millions

New York City’s public hospital system spent tens of millions more on temporary staff than expected to offset nursing shortages during the Covid-19 pandemic—and that elevated spending will likely continue in the coming months, according to a new report.

The findings from New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli underscore the effects staffing challenges continue to have on hospitals—particularly NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H) facilities that often treat low-income, undocumented, and uninsured New Yorkers—even as the country prepares to officially enter the post-pandemic phase.

“For many [New York City] residents, NYC Health + Hospitals is a lifeline to quality health care, but it is a public health system struggling to get fully back on its feet after the stress of the pandemic,” DiNapoli said in a statement.

The report, which updated a 2021 analysis, found that temporary staffing at H+H facilities grew by 83% (or 860 full-time-equivalent workers) between February 2020 and September 2022—a period in which many nurses and other healthcare staff left the workforce due to burnout, illness, or vaccination mandates, among other reasons.

That increase resulted in $125 million in unexpected costs for the health system in the city’s 2023 fiscal year, which ends on June 30. DiNapoli’s office said it expects those costs to “remain elevated through at least FY 2024.”

Contract labor costs at healthcare systems and hospitals across New York are estimated to have grown by more than 110% compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to the report. The average weekly salary for temporary nurses reached about $3,300 as of March 2022, up from $1,800 before the pandemic.

Other findings:

• H+H facilities experienced a 6% decline in the number of registered nurses (RNs)—a loss of about 538 full-time-equivalent staff—and a 31% decline in licensed practical nurses (or about 221 full-time-equivalent staff) from February 2020 to September 2022.
• New York City saw a 1.1% decline in RN employment between 2019 and 2022, compared to a 5.3% drop in the rest of the state.
• H+H has a 15% vacancy rate for nurses.