Strengthening care by focusing on health workforce retention

During the COVID-19 pandemic, health care workers were hailed as heroes, but many have since decided to leave the health workforce. Why? In this episode, host Dr. Travis Bias and guest Dr. Bianca Frogner, professor in the family medicine department in the School of Medicine at University of Washington, take a closer look at issues affecting health care workforce retention and recruitment, like lagging wages, lack of coordination and workplace violence.

Health care workers are incredibly dedicated. People are choosing a field where they're trying to help people. And we should acknowledge that people who select themselves into health care are a special group and we should do our best to make sure that they feel valued. And at the beginning of the pandemic, we certainly did so by at least saying, and calling our health care workers, heroes and rightfully so. However, that notion of being a hero feels somewhat empty I think for many health care workers, as they feel that they aren't necessarily treated as heroes by organizations, by payers, by leaders as this pandemic goes on.

Bianca Frogner, PhD, professor, University of Washington