June 15, 2001

The following questions were submitted through Hotline for the Partners Town Meeting held at the MGH June 6. Jeanette Ives Erickson, RN, MS, senior vice president for Patient Care Services and chief nurse, and Greg Doyle, director of Buildings and Grounds, provided the responses below.

Q: I've heard a lot about the nursing shortage and the problems that it will cause in the future. What can Partners do to make sure that we have enough nurses in the years ahead?

Ives Erickson: I would like to clarify that we only are on the brink of a nursing shortage at this point. We won't feel the impact of a shortage until 2005. However, if we do nothing in this country to address this issue, it will be a disaster. Two years ago, Partners formed a chief nurse council. Recently, this council came together with Partners Human Resources, Government Affairs and Public Affairs to focus on how we can position ourselves as the employer of choice for nurses. We are evaluating our salary and wage rates to make sure we remain competitive in this tight job market. Also, we are working with government officials, such as Sen. John Kerry, Sen. Richard Moore and Gov. Jane Swift, to make sure there is appropriate funding for nursing education. We also are looking at how we can attract more young people to this profession. For example, we are networking with the Girl Scouts organization to introduce nursing as an exciting and rewarding future profession.

Q: What is the status of the Clinics Building elevator? Will it ever run again?

Doyle: The good news is that the state inspector recently came out to evaluate the elevator, and it should be up and running sometime in the next few weeks. Even though the plan is to tear down the Clinics Building to make way for the new ambulatory care building, we will not abandon the maintenance of the building. We will make sure the building is kept up and maintained. At the same time, however, we won't be investing a great deal of money into remodeling it.