To Retain Nurses and Other Staffers, Hospitals Are Opening Child Care Centers

Roper St. Francis Healthcare opened the facility more than 30 years ago to address a perennial human resources problem: recruitment and retention. Today, it remains one of the relatively few hospital systems in the United States to operate a full-time child care center for its employees, though that appears to be changing. Some hospitals are now considering child care centers as a means of solving one of the pandemic era’s big challenges: persuading employees to stay.

Nationally, only about 1 in 10 workers have access to employer programs that cover some or all of the costs for child care services — either on the job site or off — according to a report published last year by the U.S. Department of Labor. The health sector seems to be doing more: About one-third of U.S. hospitals offer child care benefits.

By Lauren Sausser