We need more healthcare professionals – How can we train them all?

Rising growth in demand for services within the healthcare industry prevails over contentious policy debates. In an industry already showing signs of a shortage, the growth is expected to continue and exponentially increase the need for more healthcare workers including not only nurses and physicians but technologists, allied health professionals, and support workers. Not to mention leasers and educators.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has shown since 2013 healthcare employment has had month after month of growth. And in one month 45,000 new healthcare jobs were filled and averaged 24,000 jobs per month. Clearly the demand for professionals is evident. And, for the foreseeable future, the growth is expected to continue.

New openings have historically outpaced hirings in this industry. The cap is widening quickly due to the Affordable Care Act and an aging population of retirement age healthcare practitioners. With the need for workers spiking in this time of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare employment is booming.

We are looking at over a million job openings per year in healthcare, with 204,000 of those being new RN job openings according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

People are trying to take the steps to get schooling and enter the healthcare industry. the AACN reports that in 2018 there was nearly a 4 percent increase in baccalaureate program enrollment. The dilemma is that nursing schools also turned away more than 75,000 qualified applicants because they didn’t have enough staff or resources to provide proper education.

This lack of resources means there has been a heavier lean toward online classes for the healthcare industry. With the stay at home orders across the US due to the COVI-19 pandemic, online education definitely seems like the future. We will require new strategies to cope with workforce shortages and any systemic issues that need to be resolved to better online healthcare education.

To learn more about the current status of healthcare professional job opening demands and the various pathways to enter a career in the industry, consider attending this webinar.