The study found than 11 percent of hospital-based physician jobs remain unfilled. Six percent of nursing jobs, five percent of allied healthcare positions, and five percent of pharmacist openings also remain unfilled.
Moreover, many CEOs believe there are not enough healthcare workers in their areas to meet the increased demand for medical services that universal access to care would create. Seventy percent said there would not be enough doctors to meet demand if access becomes universal, 51 percent said there would not be enough nurses, 48 percent said there would not be enough allied healthcare professionals and 45 percent said there would not be enough pharmacists.
“While the short-term economic environment may have temporarily eased the ability to recruit and retain clinical staff, the long-term dynamics of an aging population will drive the need for thousands of more healthcare professionals that don’t exist today,” Susan Nowakowski, president of AMN Healthcare, said in the release. “Any plan to expand access to care would intensify an already anticipated critical shortage of clinicians. Healthcare reform should include robust efforts to train more doctors, nurses and other clinicians,” she added.
While CEOs indicated that long-term healthcare worker shortages persist, some said the recession has masked the overall shortage and resulted in a temporary easing of their hospitals’ recruitment of clinical workers over the last six months. More than 24 percent of CEOs said the economic downturn caused them to decrease nurse recruiting efforts over the last six months, 16 percent said the downturn had caused them to decrease allied healthcare professional recruiting efforts, and 10 percent said the downturn had caused them to decrease pharmacist recruiting efforts. By contrast, more than 24 percent said the downturn had caused them to increase physician recruiting efforts over the last six months.
In the next six months, most hospital CEOs plan to maintain or even increase recruitment of healthcare professionals, the survey suggests. Ninety-three percent expect to maintain or increase physician recruiting efforts, 89 percent expect to maintain or increase nurse recruiting efforts, 91 percent expect to maintain or increase allied healthcare professional recruiting efforts, and 93 percent expect to maintain or increase pharmacist recruiting efforts. Up to 11 percent, however, expect to decrease their efforts to recruit clinical professionals in the next six months.
Read the AMN Healthcare release on the physician shortage.
