Shortage eases, but challenges remain

Healthcare jobs are appealing for many reasons

After two decades of dealing with a chronic labor shortage, healthcare has reached a crossroads – while a tight job market has produced plenty of applicants, finding and attracting top talent still remains a challenge, employment analysts say.

For employers, the hiring outlook is better than it has been in decades. A recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts that over the next few years, nursing will produce “among the largest number of new jobs for any occupation” and that employment of nurses “is expected to grow much faster than average.”

Between now and 2018, the labor statistics bureau expects 581,500 new jobs to be created and that an additional hundreds of thousands of job openings will occur from the need to replace experienced nurses who leave the profession.

Employment of registered nurses is expected to grow by 22 percent through 2018, much faster than the average for all occupations. Growth will be driven by technological advances in patient care, which permit a greater number of health problems to be treated, and by an increasing emphasis on preventive care.

Nursing vacancies will be greatest in physician offices, followed closely by home health, long-term care, employment services and hospitals. There will continue to be strong demand for nurses in the long-term care setting because of the baby boomer surge, bureau research shows.

“Options within healthcare are increasing and people realize in this economy that jobs are available to individuals who are not only well educated but also for those with a high school education,” said Mary Ann Holt, RN, partner with Chadds Ford, Pa.-based IMA Consulting. “There are a lot of positions available for allied health professionals who continue to have a large area of opportunity as well as for people without a degree, such as home health aides and medical assistants.”

With more people available to fill job vacancies and demand for workers as strong as ever, the healthcare employment situation would seem to be a win-win scenario for employers and employees. And while that may indeed be the case, both sides continue to face challenges, said Holt.

“Some who have gone through the necessary training are having a hard time finding positions because people are delaying retirement,” she said. “And while hospitals need people, they need qualified people and that’s not easy.”

To be sure, “the hunt for talent remains a priority for organizations across a broad range of specialties and for healthcare in particular due to significant expansion of population healthcare demands,” says Kevin Wildenhaus, Ph.D., director of behavioral science and consulting for Washington, Pa.-based Wellness & Prevention. “The need to attract talent is more important than ever.”

Provider POV

Executives from Orlando Health in Orlando, Fla., say the 1,700-bed provider organization serves as a typical example of the current labor situation. Christy Pearson, COO of human resources, describes staffing levels as “relatively stable,” but that “some more specialized jobs still experience staffing deficits.”

Among the vacancies that have been hardest to fill have been nursing leadership, surgical positions and both occupational and physical therapists. With the onset of ICD-10 coding looming in the near future, finding job candidates with the proper experience to handle the complex new coding format has also been difficult, said Clarence Hester, Orlando Health’s corporate director of compensation.

“These positions tend to be more difficult to fill because the requirements, such as education and licensing, are more rigorous and the supply is more limited in the local market,” he said.

The health system felt the nursing shortage most strongly in the mid-2000s, Pearson said, due mainly to “diminished capacity in nursing programs.” Since then, nursing schools have opened more slots to nursing students “and that variable has been mitigated.” In recent years, she said Orlando Health has seen more job applicants as a result of the high unemployment rate, including “more candidates with college and advanced degrees than ever before.”

A higher volume of applicants has allowed the hospital to be more selective with job candidates, though Pearson continues to be proactive in finding quality personnel through its website, social media and smart device technology. Moreover, the key to retaining high quality employees, she said, is “to recognize work/life balance, provide appropriate rewards and recognition and offer career development opportunities.”

Gender reversals

An interesting shift has developed in recent years concerning gender stereotypes as jobs dominated by men or women have seen an influx of the opposite sex. Two examples are nursing and information technology.

Although the nursing ranks are still predominantly women, more men are making their way into the profession, says Ron Romano, RN, director of professional services for the American Association of Long-Term Care Nurses. In an economy where some men have been unemployed for years, nursing holds a lot of appeal, he said.

“It’s a profession that is recession-proof,” Romano said. “You will find work and receive a good salary for what you do. It pays enough to support a family and offers time off.”

Furthermore, the nursing profession is stratifying in different directions that more men are finding suitable, such as home health agency management, product sales and clinical consulting.

“They are finding that you can do a lot with a nursing degree besides nursing,” he said.

Conversely, the information technology field has had a reputation for being a male-oriented culture. But that image is changing, with more women entering the field, says Carol LeMaster, healthcare IT staffing practice manager for Scottsdale, AZ-based AP Professionals.

“With the push to upgrade technology, it has been nurses and administrators who are the users and know what the systems need in the way of design,” she said. “They are also good relationship builders who are able to balance the different personalities involved in getting a new system up and running and achieving user buy-in.”