| County restructures posts to meet public nursing demand |
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| Wednesday, 17 December 2008 | |
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Managing editor Several positions within the Anoka County Community Health and Environmental Services Department are being restructured to meet a demand for more public health nurses. The restructuring approved by the Anoka County Board on a recommendation from its Management Committee will create three .8 full time equivalent public health nurse positions. Currently, the department has four .5 full time equivalent public health positions vacant as well as a vacant full-time child and teen checkup financial assistance specialist outreach worker position. According to information provided to the county board by the county health department staff, the Minnesota Department of Human Services notified the county a year ago that the state would no longer cover with child and teen checkup dollars county staff time to assist families to enroll in Medical Assistance. The state health department gave the county until January 2009 to restructure its program, hence the decision to eliminate the outreach worker job in favor of the public health nursing needs. By restructuring from .5 to .8 full-time equivalent positions, the jobs would have benefits, offer flexibility and promote retention of experienced staff, the health department report states. The new public health nurses are needed to meet added demands within the health department, the county board was told. • A 50 percent increase in referrals for public health nurse home visits related to referrals from Hmong, Russian and Spanish interpreters and from English as a Second Language (ESL) participants. • An estimated 80 percent increase in public health nurse referrals for follow-ups to children and teen checkups screening. • Receiving an average of six referrals a week from a new process related to lead screening. • Assistance with annual clinic training with 16 children and teen checkup providers and over 30 dental providers. There are existing dollars in the 2008 and 2009 department budgets to fund the restructured jobs. The restructuring is budget neutral, according to County Commissioner Jim Kordiak, chairman of the board’s Management Committee. Retention has been difficult with .5 full-time equivalent positions without benefits and people have left these jobs for higher salaries, Kordiak said. The restructured .8 positions will have benefits which will aid retention, he said. Peter Bodley is at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |
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