Six states boost staffing with federal aid, National Guard and military medical teams

At least six states are using federal resources to boost hospital staffing amid the latest COVID-19 wave. Alabama is using $12.3 million in CARES Act funding to hire travel nurses, and Wyoming is using $30 million in federal funding to hire staff, provide hazard pay and pay travelling clinicians. Arkansas and Kentucky are receiving military medical teams with nurses, physicians and other clinicians who can support efforts to care for patients with COVID-19. Medics and other personnel from the National Guard are being deployed in Oregon and Tennessee to support understaffed hospitals with patient care and non-clinical tasks. (Becker’s Hospital Review article, 9/9/21)