Institute of Medicine Report on Heatlh Care Workforce

Discussed in earlier posts, is a growing concern over the increasing demand for healthcare services, and shrinking number of providers. On April 14th of 2008, the Institute of Medicine published an exceptional report entitled “Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce”.

Retooling for an Aging America: …
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Aside for validating this blog, the report outlines in greater detail the changing needs of the healthcare system in regard to treating older patients. Included in the report is an estimate that perhaps 32,000 qualified applicants annually are denied entry into nursing programs due to the lack of space and available faculty. In addition, physicians are not particularly interested in geriatric medicine which in general competes poorly with other sub-specialties like Dermatology.

The net of all this is, as stated here before, is that we lacking the labor needed to support the current and future demand for healthcare services.