Max
09-09-2002, 01:34 PM
A shortage of health professionals
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By Lee Bowman
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
Serious shortages of nurses, pharmacists and physicians pose a significant threat to the American health-care system's capacity to safely care for patients, according to several new studies.
Health professionals are leaving critical jobs, and enrollment in schools to train replacements is either flat or down across the country.
"We are seeing a mass exodus just as the baby boomer generation is aging and requiring more from the health-care system. Their health-care needs far outstrip the care and services our health practitioners can safely supply," said John Iglehart, editor of the journal Health Affairs, which devoted much of its latest issue to studies on the health professions.
While the nursing shortage has gotten national attention, and Congress has approved financial incentives for more people to enter the profession, researchers say that more effort must be devoted to retaining registered nurses and to make sure that recent graduates go on to practice nursing.
"The nursing profession is having an increasingly more difficult time holding on to nurses, as irregular work hours, heavy patient loads and stressful work conditions are driving them to non-nursing professions," said Seema Nayyar, editor of American Demographics magazine, which published a study on nursing last week.
In 2000, the country experienced a shortfall of about 110,000 registered nurses; by the end of the decade, there will be nearly 1 million job openings for nurses, the magazine projected.
But between 1996 and 2002, there was a 36 percent increase in the number of RNs working in non-nursing jobs, and a survey for American Demographics found that 55 percent of nurses would not recommend the profession to others.
Julie Sochalski, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing in Philadelphia, reports in Health Affairs that in 2000, more than 7 percent of male and 4 percent of female nursing school grads didn't seek work in profession.
"Certainly the supply of nurses needs to be increased greatly in the coming years," Sochalski said, "but initiatives to retain nurses and recover those who leave should occupy an equal place." She said the study suggests that enhanced career ladders, better wages, more flexible hours and child-care benefits might help attract and keep more RNs in nursing.
Dearths elsewhere
Shortages extend beyond the nursing field.
Despite warnings for decades that the nation was training too many doctors, a study by Edward Salsberg, head of the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University of Albany, contends that there's no physician surplus. "Several recent examinations of the balance of supply and demand suggest that the nation may be facing a shortage, instead," he writes. His report also appears in Health Affairs.
The number of physicians in the country has grown by more than 320,000 since 1980. However, the growth of U.S. medical school graduates during that time was just 12 percent and the population grew by 24 percent. Much of the demand for doctors was met with foreign-trained physicians.
Two other reports, published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that medical school applications in the United States have fallen by nearly 10 percent since 1999. Additionally, the number of international medical graduates seeking certification to complete medical training and practice in the United States has fallen by more than 45 percent in the past six years.
Meanwhile, Judith Cooksey and her colleagues at the University of Illinois report in Health Affairs that even though the ranks of pharmacists increased by more than 24,000 in the past decade, some jobs in hospitals and community pharmacies still go unfilled largely because so many more prescriptions must be filled, and responsibilities of pharmacists have grown.
The average number of prescriptions dispensed by retail pharmacists increased by 35 percent between 1992 and 2000. And even though the number of chain drugstores has grown, so many self-employed pharmacists have retired or gone to work elsewhere that there were 3,600 fewer drugstores at the end of the 1990s than at the beginning of the decade.
Cooksey said the shortage has forced greater reliance on automation and on pharmacy technicians and assistants, but that more innovation and collaboration between pharmacists and other health professionals will be needed to continue high levels of service.
09/08/02
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"Experience teaches that, of all the emotions, fear stands alone in its power to move us, or to capture us in its grip forever. In a world of terrors, there is nothing more fearsome that the unknown...especially when what is unknown is ourselves." Outer Limits(Fear Itself)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Lee Bowman
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
Serious shortages of nurses, pharmacists and physicians pose a significant threat to the American health-care system's capacity to safely care for patients, according to several new studies.
Health professionals are leaving critical jobs, and enrollment in schools to train replacements is either flat or down across the country.
"We are seeing a mass exodus just as the baby boomer generation is aging and requiring more from the health-care system. Their health-care needs far outstrip the care and services our health practitioners can safely supply," said John Iglehart, editor of the journal Health Affairs, which devoted much of its latest issue to studies on the health professions.
While the nursing shortage has gotten national attention, and Congress has approved financial incentives for more people to enter the profession, researchers say that more effort must be devoted to retaining registered nurses and to make sure that recent graduates go on to practice nursing.
"The nursing profession is having an increasingly more difficult time holding on to nurses, as irregular work hours, heavy patient loads and stressful work conditions are driving them to non-nursing professions," said Seema Nayyar, editor of American Demographics magazine, which published a study on nursing last week.
In 2000, the country experienced a shortfall of about 110,000 registered nurses; by the end of the decade, there will be nearly 1 million job openings for nurses, the magazine projected.
But between 1996 and 2002, there was a 36 percent increase in the number of RNs working in non-nursing jobs, and a survey for American Demographics found that 55 percent of nurses would not recommend the profession to others.
Julie Sochalski, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing in Philadelphia, reports in Health Affairs that in 2000, more than 7 percent of male and 4 percent of female nursing school grads didn't seek work in profession.
"Certainly the supply of nurses needs to be increased greatly in the coming years," Sochalski said, "but initiatives to retain nurses and recover those who leave should occupy an equal place." She said the study suggests that enhanced career ladders, better wages, more flexible hours and child-care benefits might help attract and keep more RNs in nursing.
Dearths elsewhere
Shortages extend beyond the nursing field.
Despite warnings for decades that the nation was training too many doctors, a study by Edward Salsberg, head of the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University of Albany, contends that there's no physician surplus. "Several recent examinations of the balance of supply and demand suggest that the nation may be facing a shortage, instead," he writes. His report also appears in Health Affairs.
The number of physicians in the country has grown by more than 320,000 since 1980. However, the growth of U.S. medical school graduates during that time was just 12 percent and the population grew by 24 percent. Much of the demand for doctors was met with foreign-trained physicians.
Two other reports, published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that medical school applications in the United States have fallen by nearly 10 percent since 1999. Additionally, the number of international medical graduates seeking certification to complete medical training and practice in the United States has fallen by more than 45 percent in the past six years.
Meanwhile, Judith Cooksey and her colleagues at the University of Illinois report in Health Affairs that even though the ranks of pharmacists increased by more than 24,000 in the past decade, some jobs in hospitals and community pharmacies still go unfilled largely because so many more prescriptions must be filled, and responsibilities of pharmacists have grown.
The average number of prescriptions dispensed by retail pharmacists increased by 35 percent between 1992 and 2000. And even though the number of chain drugstores has grown, so many self-employed pharmacists have retired or gone to work elsewhere that there were 3,600 fewer drugstores at the end of the 1990s than at the beginning of the decade.
Cooksey said the shortage has forced greater reliance on automation and on pharmacy technicians and assistants, but that more innovation and collaboration between pharmacists and other health professionals will be needed to continue high levels of service.
09/08/02
==============================
"Experience teaches that, of all the emotions, fear stands alone in its power to move us, or to capture us in its grip forever. In a world of terrors, there is nothing more fearsome that the unknown...especially when what is unknown is ourselves." Outer Limits(Fear Itself)