On September 9, 2021, President Biden issued an executive order mandating that federal contractors and large employers, including hospitals, require their employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The health care community entered the COVID-19 pandemic with an already challenging labor market where hospitals were reporting a nine percent nursing shortage nationally. We called on the existing workforce to perform the herculean task of caring for communities in the height of a pandemic and are now facing unprecedented levels of increased burnout and turnover. This sets the stage for an extreme supply and demand imbalance.

The Pennsylvania Continuous Service Readiness Program (CSRP) is a joint effort between Joint Commission Resources (JCR) and The Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP) to structure and implement programs by which hospitals can receive education, consultation, and feedback on an ongoing basis from JCR and The Joint Commission (TJC) staff.