Hospital worker survey will help Gainey administration understand industry challenges

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey’s transition team plans to undertake a massive survey of Pittsburgh hospital workers, hoping the information gleaned will help the city lessen the challenges that are driving health care workers away from the bedside.

Jake Pawlak, Gainey’s transition director and head of the city’s Office of Management and Budget, said that while the mayor cannot regulate wages or working conditions, the survey results could present other opportunities for city services to offer solutions.

“In part, we don’t exactly know what the outcomes will be until we receive the survey results,” he said during a virtual briefing to announce the survey launch. “That’s why we’re eager to have this information fed into (Gainey’s) transition process where members … can use that information to prepare recommendations for the mayor for ways the city can help address the challenges that are confronting health care workers.”

The survey, which takes 15 to 25 minutes to complete, will touch on working conditions, wages, current challenges, reasons for leaving and reasons for staying, said Sara Goodkind, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work, which will undertake the survey.

“Basically we designed it in a way that we will be able to get an understanding of what the current challenges are, what the impact of the pandemic has been, the financial well-being of workers,” she said. “We can use this information to learn what we can do to better support our hospital workers so they are able to continue their jobs.”

The survey can be found at pghhospitalworkerssurvey.com