Boone Health hires on 200 employees in past year
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
It's been a year since leaders at Boone Health decided to take it independent.
The major hospital in Columbia is forging ahead without the backing of another health care company.
Boone Health CEO Troy Greer says getting people to work, and keeping people there, will be the industry's next major challenge as it pushes on from the COVID-19 pandemic..
He says the hospital is 88% staffed, and have hired 200 employees in the last year.
"But that doesn't mean we've resolved the problem,” Greer said. “If you were to ask any of our staff members the biggest challenge today, is truly having sufficient resources to meet the demand coming in from our community."
That current demand involves plenty of respiratory illnesses, like the flu.
Greer says those same lessons learned in the pandemic on protecting yourself, like hygiene and vaccines, can help the hospital stay prepared.
"What we don't want to do is get really relaxed about the idea that everything is fine now when we really still do have a lot of demand for the given amount of workforce that we have across the industry, not just at Boone," Greer said.