10,000 Nurses on the Edge, a Union Decertification & the GLP-1 Benefit Bomb Landing July 1

Three stories in one week that cut across labor relations, trust, and total compensation strategy. Bo, Luke, and ASHHRA Executive Director Jeremy Sadlier break down what every healthcare HR leader needs to act on before July 1st — with ASHHRA26 in Savannah just days away.

🔥 Corewell Health: 90% Strike Authorization Nearly 10,000 registered nurses across nine Corewell Health East hospitals voted 90% to authorize a strike — the clearest possible signal that trust has collapsed. Nurses voted to unionize in November 2024, defeating a $1.7M anti-union campaign. Nearly a year into first-contract negotiations, management terminated the nurse student loan repayment program and eliminated pool pay. The union calls it retaliation. The vote confirms it landed that way. HR Takeaway: A 90% authorization vote doesn't mean 90% of nurses want to walk. It means 90% are frustrated enough to use the most powerful tool they have. Culture is what happens when the lawyers aren't in the room. The time to build credibility is every day before negotiations start — not during them.

🔄 GWU Nurses Try to Vote Their Union Out On the opposite end: nurses at George Washington University Hospital filed a decertification petition with the NLRB just two years after voting the union in 310-207. The nurses leading the effort say promises weren't kept and the union drove a wedge between coworkers. Decertifications are exceedingly rare — employees must self-fund and self-organize with zero employer support while the union retains full resources. That 30% got there at all is telling.

💊 Medicare GLP-1 Coverage at $50/Month Starts July 1 CMS announced Medicare Part D will cover GLP-1 weight loss medications for a $50 monthly copay beginning July 1st. Qualifying criteria: BMI of 27+ with a cardiovascular condition, or BMI of 35+. The bridge program runs through December 31st, 2027. GLP-1 spending has risen 500% since 2018 and now represents 14% of all US prescription drug spending. Your Medicare-eligible employees are already reading about this. Your non-Medicare employees will ask why their plan charges $300. Action: Pull your current GLP-1 coverage language. Ask your broker for a cost exposure analysis. Build a one-page FAQ for your HR team before July 1 — the questions are coming.

See you in Savannah.

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HealthCare Associates Credit Union partners with healthcare organizations to offer a no-cost financial wellness benefit for employees. Built specifically for healthcare professionals, HACU provides everyday banking, loans, mortgages, and financial education - all with no added administrative burden for HR teams.

Learn more at HACU's Human Resource Benefit or email directly at busdev@hacu.org and we are happy to take you through the process whether it's opening a membership for yourself or bringing us on as your employee benefits partner.

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How Parkland Health Grows Its Own Workforce — And Why You Should Too

Featuring Stephanie Speights, PhD, SHRM-SCP, Senior Vice President of Talent Development, Parkland Health

What if the answer to your most pressing workforce shortage is already inside your building? Stephanie Speights has been proving that thesis for nearly seven years at Parkland Health — one of the most respected health systems in the country — by building a talent development engine that grows clinical staff from the inside out.

🌱 Start With Your Highest Turnover Role Stephanie's counterintuitive advice: don't start with your hardest-to-fill clinical role. Start with the role that churns the fastest. Identify the volume you hire annually, calculate first-year turnover, and build your apprenticeship pipeline there. The transporters, PCAs, and dietary staff cycling through your revolving door are often your best candidates for the next clinical role they never knew existed. But first — address why they're leaving. Drop people into a broken environment and they will still leave.

🤝 Commit Operations Before You Launch The most common failure point: workforce development teams that build great programs but can't get operations to hire the graduates. Stephanie is direct — before you build the cohort, get the commitment. Leaders must agree to hire from the program and to be active participants in shaping the experience, the clinical rotations, and the matchmaking that puts the right person in the right service line.

🎓 Day One Is Not Too Early Parkland starts the development conversation at orientation with a gallery walk — posters on ERG leadership opportunities, tuition programs active on day one, and career navigator resources for anyone who wants to explore what's next. The message is clear: you don't have to wait, and you don't have to leave to grow.

🤖 AI Won't Replace the Heart — It'll Require More of It Ambient documentation, predictive scheduling, and clinical AI are already reshaping what healthcare workers do. Stephanie's response isn't a technology roadmap — it's a human one. Build agility. Develop leaders who create psychological safety around change. And make sure your senior leaders are wise enough not to chase every shiny object at the expense of core mission.

The pipeline you need is already in your building. Your job is to open the door.

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Optimize Pharmacy Benefits with RxBenefits
Elevate your employee benefits while managing costs. Did you know hospital employees fill 25% more prescriptions annually than other industries? Ensure cost-effective, high-quality pharmacy plans by leveraging your hospital’s own pharmacies. Discover smarter strategies with RxBenefits.

Learn More here - https://rxbene.fit/3ZaurZN

HealthCare Associates Credit Union partners with healthcare organizations to offer a no-cost financial wellness benefit for employees. Built specifically for healthcare professionals, HACU provides everyday banking, loans, mortgages, and financial education - all with no added administrative burden for HR teams.

Learn more at HACU's Human Resource Benefit or email directly at busdev@hacu.org and we are happy to take you through the process whether it's opening a membership for yourself or bringing us on as your employee benefits partner.

HealthCare Associates Credit Union — a healthier benefit for healthcare HR leaders and their teams.

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What a VP of Clinical Efficiency Needs HR to Understand

Featuring Katie Abebe, Vice President of Clinical Efficiency, Upstream Rehabilitation

If you have ever wondered what it feels like to run clinical operations across 800 clinics in 25 states — and what that VP actually needs from HR to make it work — this is the episode. Katie Abebe took an unconventional path from construction to community college to a doctorate in physical therapy from Chatham University, and now builds systems for clinical quality and efficiency at one of the top five largest outpatient rehab providers in the country.

⚙️ What Clinical Efficiency Actually Means Clinical efficiency is not just operational throughput. It is eliminating waste, aligning what payers require with what is best for the patient, and delivering high-quality care within insurance-constrained reimbursement models where margins are already thin. One missed clinician can eliminate an entire week's margin at a single clinic. The math is not forgiving.

🧑‍⚕️ What HR Can Do for a Clinical Workforce Right Now Katie's direct answer: flexibility and compensation. Clinical staff carry a unique burden — when they cannot show up, real patients go without care and real revenue disappears. Systems that have built flex clinician pools are absorbing that risk. For PT specifically, reimbursement has not kept pace with inflation, meaning highly credentialed clinicians are often financially stressed. Performance-based earning opportunities — not just productivity bonuses — are a meaningful retention lever.

🤖 AI in the PT Space: The Promise and the Guardrails Upstream is already using AI to reduce documentation burden — the number one reason Katie says she left the clinic. On the horizon: AI-assisted triage at the front of the funnel, helping route patients to providers most likely to deliver results. But Katie draws a clear line. AI for notes and scheduling? Embrace it. AI making the final clinical call without a human in the lead? Not yet.

🔎 The HR Takeaway Build the flex pool. Create performance-based earning paths. And when a clinician's attendance pattern shifts, don't go straight to corrective action — go to the conversation. It is almost never a work problem.

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From Our Sponsor(s)...

Optimize Pharmacy Benefits with RxBenefits
Elevate your employee benefits while managing costs. Did you know hospital employees fill 25% more prescriptions annually than other industries? Ensure cost-effective, high-quality pharmacy plans by leveraging your hospital’s own pharmacies. Discover smarter strategies with RxBenefits.

Learn More here - https://rxbene.fit/3ZaurZN

HealthCare Associates Credit Union partners with healthcare organizations to offer a no-cost financial wellness benefit for employees. Built specifically for healthcare professionals, HACU provides everyday banking, loans, mortgages, and financial education - all with no added administrative burden for HR teams.

Learn more at HACU's Human Resource Benefit or email directly at busdev@hacu.org and we are happy to take you through the process whether it's opening a membership for yourself or bringing us on as your employee benefits partner.

HealthCare Associates Credit Union — a healthier benefit for healthcare HR leaders and their teams.

Support the show