Thesis
The global lack of physicians and nurses in healthcare systems has become an urgent concern. Due to aging populations and other factors, the supply of skilled healthcare workers is unable to keep pace with the increasing demand for healthcare services. This has significant consequences for healthcare accessibility and quality, generating research and policy conversations about predicting doctor and nurse shortages and surpluses, as well as retention rates and measures to overcome labor shortages.
Annotated Bibliography
Ariste, R., Béjaoui, A., & Dauphin, A. (2019). Critical analysis of Nurses’ labour market effectiveness in Canada: The hidden aspects of the shortage. The International Journal of Health Planning and Management, 34(4), 1144–1154. Web.
The article by Ariste et al. (2019) presents a critical analysis of the nurses’ labor market in Canada, focusing on labor shortage, supply and demand of nurses, and the impact of wages. The article provides descriptive statistics on the supply and demand of nurses’ labor, indicating that Canada experienced a shortage of approximately 2.6% in 2012, which is expected to persist until 2022 but decrease to 1.3% on average, equivalent to over 46,000 nurses (Ariste et al., 2019). Quebec is identified as the province with the highest vacancy rate. The article suggests that health service provision and workload management measures are crucial in addressing the shortage issue, drawing comparisons to previous periods of economic recession. This article contributes to the understanding of nursing labor market developments in Canada.
Zhang, X., Lin, D., Pforsich, H., & Lin, V. W. (2020). Physician workforce in the United States of America: forecasting nationwide shortages. Human Resources for Health, 18(1), 8. Web.
Zhang et al. (2020) investigate the current and future patterns of physician employment surplus/shortage in the United States from 2017 to 2030. Using demand and supply projections based on predicted population size and age changes, the study estimates physician shortages (the difference between demand and supply) across all 50 states. The number of states having a forecasted physician shortage, according to the results, obtaining a grade of “D” or “F” based on the physician shortfall ratio (per 100,000 inhabitants), would rise from four in 2017 to twenty-three by 2030, with a total national deficit of 139,160 physician positions (Zhang et al., 2020). The report emphasizes the need for comprehensive initiatives to address the country’s growing physician shortage and meet the population’s healthcare needs.
Danish, A., Blais, R., & Champagne, F. (2019). Strategic analysis of interventions to reduce physician shortages in rural regions. Rural and Remote Health, 19(4). Web.
Danish et al. (2019) investigate the effectiveness of measures to eliminate physician shortages in rural OECD nations. The study identifies and categorizes factors contributing to physician shortages, prioritizes them based on significance, severity, and solvability, and evaluates treatments based on their ability to address these determinants (Danish et al., 2019). The findings indicate that the most successful initiatives include establishing rural medical schools, providing financial support to practicing physicians, and implementing non-traditional healthcare delivery models.
Scheffler, R. M., & Arnold, D. R. (2018). Projecting shortages and surpluses of doctors and nurses in the OECD: What looms ahead. Health Economics, Policy, and Law, 14(2), 274–290. Web.
In their paper, Scheffler & Arnold (2018) propose a model for the demand and supply of doctors and nurses in OECD nations for the year 2030. The model utilizes per capita income, out-of-pocket health expenditure, and population aging to estimate demand for health services. The quantity of nurses and physicians is estimated using nationally integrated autoregressive moving average models. The report forecasts that, based on current trends, OECD countries could face a shortfall of nearly 400,000 doctors and approximately 2.5 million nurses by 2030 (Scheffler & Arnold, 2018). The article explains the findings and suggests measures to alleviate future shortages.
Ryan, R., Goodsell, S., & (Don) Havins, W. (2020). The future of the physician shortage in Nevada. Journal of Legal Medicine, 40(sup1), 20–20. Web.
The paper by Ryan et al. (2020) outlines the difficulties associated with the physician shortage in Nevada. The state ranks 48th in the US in terms of per capita primary care doctors and 47th in terms of overall active physicians per capita.In Nevada, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education graduates’ retention rate dropped from 50% in 2016 to 30% in 2017 (Ryan et al., 2020).Graduates of the University of Nevada School of Medicine and Touro University Nevada also tend to match out-of-state institutions, resulting in an inefficient supply of physicians to Nevada.The article emphasizes the need to recognize and address this issue in the future.