The impact of maldistribution of health care personnel. In the United States the distribution of physician’s workforce is not regulate by geographical locations. Physicians can elect how and where to work, resulting in an unbalance of health care professionals in every location around the country. Rural communities normally have less physicians, nurses, specialists, and other health care staff, and the lesser population, making the loss of a physician a bigger impact. Regardless of the best attempts of medical professionals and educators to increase the workforce over the past, shortages are anticipated in every health care profession. The estimated supply of workers fails to meet the need related with population growth and …show more content…
population is over 315 million and rising. In the year 2030, 72 million Americans will be 65 or older, a 50 percent change in age demographics since the year 2000. The change is primarily due to the aging baby boomers, who were born at the end of World War II. Americans are living longer than ever before with the assistance of advances in medical technology and later care management. Seniors at this time account for 12 percent of the population, but this will change to 21 percent by the year 2050. These changes will add more chronic disease and additional pressure on the health care labor …show more content…
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) predicts the demand for 7,987 primary care physicians in rural areas along with shortages of dentists and psychiatrists. Throughout the country, only 10 percent of physicians and 18 percent of nurse practitioners work in rural locations, however one-fourth of U.S. population lives in rural areas. America’s rural neighborhoods are poverty-stricken and more likely to take part in government assistance, creating the possibility for great demand due to the Medicaid expansion in 26 states. Geographical challenges influence the health of rural U.S. citizens through prolonged wait times, difficulty accessing care, long-distance travel, and scarce resources. To alleviate some of the issues of health care workers shortages, the ACA re-authorized loan repayment and forgiveness, scholarships, increases in Medicare-funded Graduate Medical Education (GME) residency positions, funding for workforce planning, and added funding for the Public Health Service. These programs are aimed to reduce the rural shortages, but usually attained only partial success. However, these are the only initiatives use so far to deal with
In the 1990s the government made the decision to cut back on physician production because it though that it had enough physicians (Dauphinee, 2005). This lead to the greatest net loss of Canadian physicians to other countries, primarily the united states (Dauphinee, 2005). It was approximated that 508 physicians left in 1996 (Dauphinee, 2005).
There has been a shortage of physicians, lack of inpatient beds, problems with ambulatory services, as well as not having proper methods of dealing with patient overflow, all in the past 10 years (Cummings & francescutti, 2006, p.101). The area of concern that have been worse...
Jacobsen, L. A., Kent, M., Lee, M., & Mather, M. (2001). America's aging population. Population Bulletin, 66(1).
Furthermore, the healthcare industry is experiencing staffing shortages. Unfortunately, the shortage of healthcare professionals is more profound in rural areas (National Conference of State Legislators [NCSL], 2016). The ratio per capita between rural and urban providers is 0.42 for physicians, 0.66 for NPs, and 0.91 for registered nurses (National Center for Health Workforce Analysis, 2012). Compounding the problem, the rural population ages 55 to 75 are estimated to grow 30% by 2020 (NCSL, 2016). Staffing shortages will perpetuate access barriers and they will be especially difficult for rural organizations to overcome because of limited
It is no secret that the current healthcare reform is a contentious matter that promises to transform the way Americans view an already complex healthcare system. The newly insured population is expected to increase by an estimated 32 million while facing an expected shortage of up to 44,000 primary care physicians within the next 12 years (Doherty, 2010). Amidst these already overwhelming challenges, healthcare systems are becoming increasingly scrutinized to identify ways to improve cost containment and patient access (Curits & Netten, 2007). “Growing awareness of the importance of health promotion and disease prevention, the increased complexity of community-based care, and the need to use scarce human healthcare resources, especially family physicians, far more efficiently and effectively, have resulted in increased emphasis on primary healthcare renewal.” (Bailey, Jones & Way, 2006, p. 381).
Yee, T, Boukus, E. R., Cross, D., Samuel, D. R. (2013). Primary care workforce shortage: Nurse practitioner scope of practice laws and payment
Every American will be at the losing end if the shortage of primary care doctors continues. Our current system is broken and all the alternatives our politicians are recommending favors only special interest groups whose only concern is their bottom-line. Our policy makers will not understand the predicament of the average citizen. Their special health insurance coverage insulates them from problem we all encounter.
According to Shi & Singh, "only 32% of physicians currently practice primary care, much below the recommended minimum of 40%...almost one-quarter of the primary care workforce are 56 or older...and less than one quarter of medical students are choosing primary care" (Shi&Singh, 2015, p.132). Obviously this is a huge issue for the future, as current primary care physicians are aging and there are not enough replacements. This would surely induce an imbalance in the medical field, leading to a further maldistribution in the health care sector. This situation further hurts both patients and hospitals, especially in rural areas where only 9% of physicians practice (Shi&Singh, 2015, p.133). An imbalance also occurs between primary and specialty
Jobs in this field are increasing by seventeen percent, faster than average. Most employment is predicted to grow in the office of health practitioners. As the large baby-boom population remains active, the healthcare industry as a whole should see an increase. This increased demand for healthcare will increase the need for Nurses, Physicians, and other jobs including DoN
is very expensive, and yet in many local hospitals there are nursing shortages. In many rural areas, there are also physician and nursing shortages (Holtz, 2008). Physicians and nurses are paid well for their jobs in the U.S. there is just an increase need of more health care providers. There are major health disparities in the U.S. amongst different races, ethnicities, and socioeconomic statuses (Holtz, 2008). People who are poor, or of low income, probably will not have the health care they need, and have a higher chance of having a mental illness in comparison to those from higher economic status (Holtz, 2008). With that, it is clear that there is an uneven distribution of health care in the United States. Lessened minorities are less expected than the greater minority to have good health care, with less opportunity to access diagnostic examinations, medications, and surgical practices (Holtz,
One downfall of the system is a lack of diversity in care providers. Evidence shows that 13% of the U.S. population is black, but only 4% of U.S. physicians are black [4]. Diversity in the health care workforce is important because minority doctors are more likely to practice in underserved areas treating minority patients [6], which increases access to a provider for these groups. Also, having diverse providers in the workplace is an organizational way to provide education to other providers who may not have been exposed to different cultures and beliefs, increasing awareness among all providers about the necessity to remain culturally sensitive [7]. However, the data shows that most medical school graduates continue to be white and the number of black men completing medical school has been trending downwards since 1997. This deficit in minority care providers can be attributed to a decreased ability for schools in areas with high populations of minorities to prepare students for college, a lack of federal support in such areas, and the financial inability for these students to pursue higher education [6]. As seen in Figure 2, by a very large margin, white medical school graduates are the majority (green) while black (purple), Hispanic (blue), and American Indian (red) graduates are greatly underrepresented [7]. Not only are there racial disparities in the distribution of medical students, but they also exist in medical school faculty. This is significant because it creates an environment in which black medical students lack a significant presence of role models in their educational setting. A study described in Ansell et al. showed that black faculty members were less likely to have been retained than any other group. They were also less likely to be promoted, to hold senior faculty or administrative positions, and
The health care system is plagued with many problems and one of the most prevalent problems is staff shortages coupled with decrease in medical and financial resources (Swayne, Duncan & Ginter, 2008), Children’s...
Prior to reading about “Aging in America”, I was aware of economic, long-term care, and health care concerns with “baby boomers” retiring over the next few decades. However, some of the actual statistics Squiers found were surprising, for instance there are approximately “75.9 million” adults in the baby boom generation (2005, p. 193) and the U.S. has the third largest population of seniors. Also informative was that the “baby boomers” will lose both Medicare and Social Security benefits due to there being “nearly twice as many boomers as there are current Medicare recipients” (Squiers, 2005, p. 193) and the funds will not be enough to cover the number of people aged 65 and older coming into retirement.
It is apparent that in the present generation and century, the older Americans’ population is growing faster than ever before and it is also proven that they are living longer than there before according to The Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics (2010: 17). The report further says that the 65 years old Americans can now look forward to live an average of 18.5 more years which accrues to four years more than the previous indications in 1960s. Further, for those who live to the age of 85 years women have 6.8 years on average to live while men have 5.7 years.
The simple formula for the development of organization is hire qualified physicians from the competitive market and develop relationship within the community (Hughes & Beauty, 2008). But imbalance between demands and supply, putting more pressure on health care manpower.