Dear ASHHRA Colleagues, 

Last night, I started thinking about packing for Texas. Anyone who knows me can attest that I typically pack for a trip the night before, and so the fact that I am pulling out my suitcases now should be an indicator to everyone about how excited I am to connect with fellow members, sponsors and exhibitors in Grapevine. I hope you have made plans to join me at the Gaylord Texan Hotel and Conference Center for the 52nd Annual ASHHRA Conference, September 24–27, 2016.

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Take a lunch break with us and join fellow human resources and organizational development professionals in this lively monthly chat about the hottest topics in the field! Sponsored by the Learning & Education Committee of ASHHRA, we meet online the first Thursday of every month from 12:30-1:30 p.m. CT.

The renewal cycle for the Certified in Healthcare Human Resources (CHHR) credential is three (3) years, with expiration on the last day of the month in which certification expires. Renewal may be achieved by completing eligible professional development activities or retaking and passing the CHHR Examination. The issued CHHR certificate indicates the date certification was earned and expires. If you obtained your CHHR during the inaugural exam in October 2013, your CHHR renewal is coming up in October 2016.

This week, the AHA urged congressional leaders to provide $1.1 billion in new funding to combat the Zika virus. "Now that Zika is locally-transmitted in the United States, the challenge we face is preventing the virus from taking permanent hold, not only in Florida, but in half of the country," AHA Executive Vice President Tom Nickels wrote.

An estimated 29 million U.S. residents lacked health insurance for the entire year in 2015, 4 million fewer than in 2014, the Census Bureau reported yesterday. The share of residents without health insurance for the year fell by 1.3 percentage points to 9.1 percent due to increases in both private and public coverage.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has released a final rule bolstering emergency preparedness requirements for hospitals and other critical facilities. Recent national disasters prompted the agency to increase requirements for health care facilities in the Medicare Conditions of Participation.

"What is your current salary?" "Please include your salary history in your cover letter." "Error: Please fill in all fields before hitting enter." Most companies require candidates to disclose salary history before they'll consider them. But not in Massachusetts, which just passed legislation that bans employers from asking about salary history until after they've made a job offer that includes the compensation package.

High patient volumes, an aging staff, and health care workers' growing demands for flexibility can be surmounted with a few strategic management moves.

Are your nurses engaged, committed employees? Or are they biding their time until they can go somewhere better? Job opportunities for RNs and APRNs abound, and even nurses who appear content may be planning their exit strategies. To predict whether you face an exodus, take a look at these five reasons why your nurses want out.

Gender equality has improved since 1873, when the Supreme Court ruled that women couldn’t be lawyers, but still, women are CEOs of only 4.5 percent of the Fortune 1000. In virtually every profession, women are underrepresented in top management. However, it is a legal AND business imperative to fix the gender equality problem.

Numerous studies, and perhaps even common sense, have long told us that happy workers are more productive workers. While companies often take measures to try to raise employee satisfaction, more than a quarter of the entire workforce is unsatisfied with their current job, according to the 2016 Industry & Productivity Report by Bolste. Some experts say employee happiness needs to start at the top with a CEO dedicated to keeping morale high.

Is your business protected from a data breach? The largest data theft in history resulted in: 1.2 billion internet user names and passwords compromised, 420,000 websites impacted, and well-known national brands and small companies affected. Here are ten things you can do to protect your business.

Patient experience has become a hot topic today, and hospital managers understand the importance of improving patient satisfaction. One of the things they do is collect patient feedback forms routinely, so that they can act on the complaints they receive and fix problems. This is all well and good, but the trouble is that most patients and family members don't bother to provide feedback — and the quality of the feedback they do give is poor.

While hospitals in the Medicare Hospital Value-Based Purchasing program receive patient experience points based on achievement, improvement and consistency, additional emphasis on improvement points could benefit hospitals serving minority patients, according to a recent study in Health Affairs.

The use of hospital restraints has declined steadily, at least partially because doctors and patients prefer they not be used, but in hospitals with more registered nurses on shifts restraints are far less likely to be used, according to the new study, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

It's been said that the best way to eat an elephant is by taking one bite at a time. But if changes are elephants, today's physicians have herds of them on their proverbial plates.

Consumer behaviors and preferences play a major part in U.S. job creation. CareerBuilder and Emsi recently released a study of occupations that are growing and the behaviors that can be attributed to their success. Each behavior was grouped into one of three main factors: lifestyle changes, technology advancements and globalization. The study looked at job totals from 2012 through 2016 to get an idea of how the occupations have grown in just a few years.

This week, hundreds of hospital leaders are reaching out to their members of Congress to talk about the challenges facing their patients and communities. What are the issues facing hospitals and health systems today? Recent developments regarding the so-called site-neutral payment provisions included in the outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) proposed rule and legislation, the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), among others.