Employment Trend in Healthcare

Paper Summary:

This document discusses a current trend in the US healthcare industry related to employment. The employment trend in the healthcare industry that is discussed in some detail is the increasing prevalence of staffing shortages. The inability of many healthcare organizations to effectively overcome such shortages is also examined.

Outline:
Overview & Influences
Economic Impacts
Government, Business & Society
Future Developments

From the Paper:

"The United States (US) is courting disaster with its current trend in rising healthcare costs, very much related to increasing costs associated with the higher recruiting and salary costs necessary to retain qualified personnel on staff. Currently, the US healthcare industry is understaffed to such a degree that approximately 34m individuals in the US reside in regions that are understaffed by healthcare professionals (Hecker & Frank, 2004). In the US market the healthcare industry is fully privatized with employees being offered healthcare insurance through the employer, which is usually subsidized by the employer or offered healthcare insurance through a private insurer but the last option is expensive. Additionally, there are several federally mandated programs such as Medicare and Medicaid that provide some degree of medical coverage to the elderly and the underserved that have indirectly influenced the current staffing shortages because these programs do not compensate to the same degree and as privately funded services would and thus potential healthcare professionals are not attracted to the industry as a whole. Clearly, the US' healthcare system is in dire need of an overhaul in terms of its ability to not only attract qualified professionals but to also retain them. Otherwise, the alternatives of not correcting for some of these contributing factors will be having a very large percentage of the US population become essentially uninsured, which will further contribute to rising healthcare costs and indirectly compound the staffing shortages even further."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Buckley, J. E., & Van Giezen, R. W. (2004). Federal Statistics on Healthcare Benefits and Cost Trends: An Overview Federal Government Statistical Agencies Provide a Variety of Healthcare Information on Diverse Aspects of the Nation's Healthcare Picture. Monthly Labor Review, 127(11), 43+.
• Geisler, E., Krabbendam, K., & Schuring, R. (Eds.). (2003). Technology, Health Care, and Management in the Hospital of the Future. Westport, CT: Praeger.
• Hecker, D. E., & Frank, D. S. (2004). Occupational Employment Projections to 2012: Employment in Professional and Related and in Service Occupations Are Expected to Increase the Fastest and Add the Most Jobs from 2002 to 2012, While Office and Administrative Support Occupations Should Grow about Half as Fast as the Total. Monthly Labor Review, 127(2), 80+.
• Thompson, T. L., Dorsey, A. M., Miller, K. I., & Parrott, R. (Eds.). (2003). Handbook of Health Communication. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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