Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/234597
Employment Report Short Falls Staff vacancies are perceived high when quality workers are needed the most. By Susan Salka Health policy makers and researchers have recently been having a healthy theoretical debate about shortages of nurses, physicians, and allied health professionals. Some predict dire shortfalls over the next two decades, while others question whether they will actually materialize, arguing that new models of patient care can dramatically reduce the problem. But healthcare leaders on the front lines today have a different view because they are dealing with the practical realities. They see the supply and demand of clinicians as an immediate problem, which they expect to get significantly [54] HRO TODAY MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2013 worse in the near future. Projections about how new patient-care paradigms should reduce shortages in the future apparently offer little comfort. AMN Healthcare's recently published 2013 Clinical Workforce Survey asked hospital executives nationwide about clinical staffing trends they are facing at their facilities. More than 70 percent rated the staffing of physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants as a high priority in 2013, compared to only 24 percent of hospital executives who rated staffing these professionals as a high priority in AMN Healthcare's 2009 workforce survey.