Wait, a surplus? New workforce projections from Mercer include a few surprises
Plus: Housing as a recruitment tactic? It’s a trend, especially in rural areas
Mercer consultants last week released a new report on the state of the healthcare workforce and its updated projections for 2028, and some of their predictions are vastly different from pretty much every other projection from the last few years.
Across all healthcare jobs, Mercer’s report says the U.S. healthcare sector will face a shortfall in 2028, but it predicts a much smaller shortage amounting to about 1% of all healthcare employees.
The report also projects a surplus of tens of thousands of registered nurses and home health aides — and even a small surplus of physicians in some states.
“Mercer’s projections are rosier than federal workforce projections, which paint a grimmer picture of impending shortages,” notes Medscape Medical News in its reporting. Prior to last week, the previous projections from Mercer came in early 2021 during the height of the pandemic, and things have changed a lot since then, said one of Mercer’s partners.
“The labor market is a little more stabilized right now, and most healthcare systems are seeing less turnover,” Dan Lezotte, PhD, told Medscape Medical News. But he noted “critical shortages” are still expected in some areas.
Health workforce shortages and surpluses will continue to vary significantly by region across the country, as well as by job type and specialty, Mercer noted throughout its report.
Perhaps most surprising is Mercer’s predicted surplus of nearly 30,000 registered nurses nationally in 2028, “but New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut are projected to have a combined shortage of 16,000 nurses.”
“Registered nurses (RNs) are a critical component of the healthcare system, comprising 19% of the total US healthcare workforce and 34% of Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations in 2023,” Mercer’s report says. “At a national level, supply is projected to outpace demand with an estimated overall surplus of nearly 30,000 RNs by 2028. However, the distribution of this surplus will vary by state and some locations are expected to experience shortages.”
The report sounds the alarm on the workforce projections for Nursing Assistants in particular, given NAs role in working closely with nurses providing direct patient care.
“The projected supply of nursing assistants (NAs) — an occupation that constitutes 8% of the total US healthcare workforce and 40% of Healthcare Support Occupations in 2023 — is discouraging. Supply of NAs is expected to fall short of projected national demand at a total deficit of over 73,000.”
Also surprising: The report projects a national surplus of 48,000 home health/personal care aides.
Medscape quoted Bianca K. Frogner, PhD, director of the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle, who is skeptical of any projected surplus, particularly given the trend “toward moving patients out of skilled nursing facilities and keeping them in the home and community, which requires many more home health aides," Frogner said.
Other workforce projections conflict with Mercer's, Medscape noted, quoting Jean Moore, DrPH, and Gaetano Forte, MS, director and assistant director of the Center for Health Workforce Studies, School of Public Health, University at Albany, Albany, New York.
The National Center for Health Workforce Analysis projects a 10% shortage of registered nurses and a 13% shortage of physicians in 2031.
Read Medscape Medical News’ report here, or download the full Mercer report here.
Job growth drops by a lot, but that might not be terrible news
Job growth last month “precipitously dropped” by 46% across all sectors of the U.S. economy, Health Leaders Media writes, and healthcare did not escape the downward trend. The industry created 31,000 jobs in August, which is just over half the monthly average of 60K reported the previous 12 months, according to federal data.
“It’s the second consecutive month for the healthcare sector to see healthy but cooling job creation,” HLM reported. “Even with the slowdown, healthcare accounted for more than one-in-five (22%) of the 142,000 jobs created in the U.S. economy in August.”
The growth was seen primarily in the ambulatory care sector (24,000) and hospitals (10,000).
Rural North Carolina healthcare education group launches tiny home project
As in many rural areas in the United States, Western North Carolina has a shortage of short-term housing. This makes it much harder for rural healthcare education programs to operate clinical rotations for future providers, which in turn makes it more difficult to recruit those providers to live and work in rural areas.
That’s the reasoning behind a plan by the Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC) to build tiny homes for those working to earn degrees in medicine, pharmacy, behavioral health, and other health-sciences-related fields in parts of Western North Carolina.
MAHEC’s pilot project aims to help solve a growing need for housing for healthcare providers in training. Its CEO, Dr. William Hathaway, tells ABC11 that four so-called tiny homes will soon be available in Sylva for health science students rotating within the region.
“In order to get our students to take jobs in the future in rural areas, they need to train in rural areas,” he said. “Our goal was to provide housing for the students when they do away rotations from the big university settings... So, when they do a rural rotation with a physician or a dental practice, now they have a place to stay overnight.”
Lori Anderson, dean of Health and Human Sciences at Western Carolina University, said this kind of housing solution could “foster a new generation of healthcare providers equipped to tackle the healthcare disparities in rural communities.”
Speaking of recruitment tactics: Cross-state advertising, student loan repayment, and more housing ideas
With competition for workers in the medical field as fierce as ever, healthcare employers are increasingly turning to some “pretty interesting recruitment tactics,” reports Marketplace:
“Case in point: The state of New Mexico is running an ad campaign in Texas trying to lure health workers who may want to leave because of the state’s abortion restrictions. … While New Mexico’s ad campaign might not boost health care hiring, its investments in student loan repayment programs may help, according to Mike Shimmens, who runs the National Rural Recruitment and Retention Network.”
Another tactic Shimmens has started to see in rural areas, where finding housing can be a challenge: “There are organizations out there that are starting to offer solutions for that, i.e., either buying or even possibly building their own housing,” he told Marketplace. Read more here.
Wisconsin governor’s healthcare workforce task force releases recommendations
The report released a few weeks ago is the culmination of more than a year of work by the governor’s task force — and the report is in-depth and very specific. Spoiler alert: It leans heavily into apprenticeships. (You can download it here.)
Below is a summary of the 10 recommendations with 26 “action items.” (And yes, this is the TLDR version. 🫠 The report is huge.)
Support faculty who teach health professions: Expand the faculty workforce to increase schools’ capacity to enroll students.
Expand incentive programs for health profession educators.
Increase compensation for health professions faculty.
Strengthen clinical training and experience: Expand access to clinical training and other hands-on experiences to help students complete the requirements to pursue healthcare occupations.
Support preparation of clinical behavioral health counselors (Qualified Treatment Trainee Grants).
Support clinical partnerships and preceptors.
Expand experiential learning (simulation).
Reduce barriers to training: Address the significant personal and professional costs of education to help the state’s residents pursue and advance in healthcare careers.
Fund wraparound services programs for students.
Train direct care professionals and nurse aides.
Reduce general educational development and high school equivalency diploma (GED/HSED) costs for students.
Increase training grants for allied health professionals and clinicians.
Expand apprenticeships and other learning opportunities.
Provide additional state funding for apprenticeship programs to:
Increase infrastructure support for apprenticeship programs to boost interest, understanding, and navigation of healthcare apprenticeships.
Increase staffing to boost outreach to employers, build and grow pre-apprenticeship opportunities to train people for registered apprenticeship opportunities, and allow for more nimble policy and program changes.
Support and enhance the development of new and existing curriculum.
Support information technology processes to help the state respond to the increased demand for pre-apprenticeships, registered apprenticeships, and youth apprenticeships.
Incentivize local groups to engage sponsors and bridge youth apprenticeships to registered apprenticeship programs to encourage youth to continue their career pathway as an adult.
Support instruction-related costs for youth apprentices to ensure equitable access to youth apprenticeship pathways.
Support registered apprentices by covering the costs of any required licenses, certifications, and exams.
Support the apprenticeship completion award program.
Support on-the-job learning reimbursements to healthcare sector employers to incentivize them to establish new registered apprenticeship programs.
Fund Worker Advancement Initiative Grants.
Increase student access to health science and dual enrollment.
Increase payer support for recruitment and retention; increase funding provided through Medicaid and other payers to help employers boost provider compensation.
Expand Medicaid to support healthcare workers and fund workforce initiatives.
Rate increases to strengthen the workforce for people who live in Wisconsin who are elderly or disabled.
Rate increases to strengthen the behavioral health workforce.
Foster recruitment and retention in areas of need.
Expand state incentives for health professionals serving in state-defined shortage areas.
Support regional innovation: Invest in regional collaboration to help employers, schools, and other partners address local workforce challenges.
Support employer-based workforce development solutions with Provider Innovation Grants.
Support regional collaboration for workforce development through Workforce Innovation Grants.
Support direct care professionals with health insurance benefits navigation.
Support expanded pathways to licensure.
Authorize Medicaid reimbursement for community-focused providers.
Support pathways to licensure for qualified internationally educated professionals.
Ratify and enter into multi-state licensing compacts.
Revise faculty educational requirements.
Strengthen state capacity to support licensure.
Maintain licensing improvements and enhance licensing support for applicants, employers, educators, and other partners.
Strengthen workforce monitoring and support.
Increase healthcare workforce wellness programming to support retention.
Analyze existing and gather additional data on the healthcare workforce.
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