Healthcare Staffing Shortage - A Post Pandemic Crisis

Within just the first two months of the COVID-19 panic, around 1.5 million healthcare jobs in the US were lost as clinics around the country closed and non-emergency services were restricted in order to curb the spread of the virus. Since then, many of such jobs have returned, but employment in the healthcare industry is still lower than levels before the pandemic. From paramedics to medical lab technicians, healthcare workers have been in limited supply.

This shortage has had ripple effects throughout the system, with entire departments and hospitals having to close their doors - resulting in patients having more limited access to treatment services.

In the first, most critical months of the pandemic, the need for patient hospitalizations had skyrocketed, but the medical labor supply was limited by infections in healthcare workers. As a result, long hours and endless stress plagued clinicians, ultimately causing many to leave the practice altogether.

Various providers report that long-term, the current healthcare staffing shortage could take away from quality of care. With fewer clinicians working in the field, those who remain have found themselves responsible for more patients and taking on a greater workload. This is contributing to the rising burnout levels in health care workers: many planned to leave the field due to the pandemic and its effects, and 18% of a poll of clinicians had already quit their jobs since February 2020. Errors in practice may also be rising, with the rates of falls, injuries, and bloodstream infections increasing by over 10% in skilled nursing facilities after early 2020.

In the next 5-10 years, the healthcare labor market is expected to face various issues such as an imbalance of nurses and physicians.

Given the estimations that these labor shortages might continue for the next decade, healthcare providers have been offering appealing benefits to employees, such as assistance with student loan repayment, to retain them. Rampant burnout rates mean that strategies like supporting telemedicine programs and schedule flexibility have been implemented in hospitals & clinics to keep healthcare workers happy and encourage their engagement.

Many healthcare employers are making efforts to attract and retain staff, but reimbursement rates are not keeping pace with inflation, another huge issue seen largely as an effect of the pandemic. Additionally, while inflation is a pressing issue for healthcare providers trying to relieve staffing and supply tensions, reimbursement rates for many sites of care are based upon past cost reports, which typically lag years behind current prices.

Though the entire ordeal may be difficult to connect to the clinical world, it has become an all too real issue for many workers in the medical field.