The U.S. economy added 372,000 jobs last month, according to The latest data From the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Health care employment increased by 57,000 in June, including 28,000 new employees in mobile health care services, 21,000 in hospitals and 8,000 in nursing and residential care facilities.
This marks a five-month increase in employment in hospitals and senior care.While this may seem like good news, health care employment levels are still well below what is needed, said Matt Wolfe, head of valuations for the consulting firm’s national healthcare business. American RSM.
This is especially true for the workforce in nursing facilities. Wolf noted that employment in this category is still 12% lower than it was before the pandemic — a period in which nursing facilities were already severely understaffed. Hospitals may be in a “better” position than nursing, but that’s largely because the use of supplemental contract workers is too expensive to be sustainable.
Many senior paramedics are fleeing to other professions. Providing this care can be very labor-intensive, and those leaving the industry may also be drawn to other industries that raise wages, such as fast food and retail. Senior paramedics often find it easier to earn the same income working in these other industries, Wolfe said.
As things unfolded, few suppliers were able to hire themselves from this job shortage, Wolfe said.Another expert, Tom Andriola, Vice-Chancellor for IT and Data UCI Health,agree. In fact, he said health care employment levels are actually getting worse.
“If you look at the staffing of healthcare in the future, you will see that demand will continue to grow as the population ages and the incidence of chronic diseases increases, and as the workforce ages faster than new professionals retire the industry,” Andriola said. “You can even consider a fourth impact now — climate impacts and the growing number of health complications from pandemic viruses.”
Not changing fee-for-service reimbursement rates, which is necessary but unlikely, Suppliers don’t have much opportunity to raise prices to keep up with the cost of labor shortages. So leveraging more technology is “the only truly sustainable solution” to the healthcare workforce crisis, Wolf said. He and Andriola believe that remote patient monitoring (RPM) could play an important role in easing the healthcare staffing crisis.
“RPM can provide the safety, security and support patients need and help them stay at home while using a small workforce,” Wolf said. “While still providing the type of care they need to live long and fulfilling lives.”
He noted that for vendors deploying RPMs, they need coverage and reimbursement, which requires Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. To effectively roll out this technology, hospitals will have to adopt a capitation and risk-sharing reimbursement model.
According to Chris Coburn, when using a value-based care model, providers don’t have to worry about the cost of temporary visits because their primary concern is making sure their patients get the care they need to stay healthy, Volkswagen general brighamChief Innovation Officer.
“Getting the right RPM is at the heart of successfully delivering value-based care,” he said. “That said, remote patient care isn’t a single technology or set of technologies — it’s an approach to care that combines technology with compassion, delivering the same excellence as in-person care.”
Andriola points out that RPM isn’t the only technology that vendors should invest in innovating to escape the people crisis. Robotic process automation, for example, can handle repetitive administrative tasks, reduce burnout and reduce stress in healthcare jobs. He also brought up the example of a digital companion that could be designed to handle routine preparation and follow-up interactions with patients.
“At the end of the day, technology is just a tool, and the real benefits come from focusing on the redesign of processes and workflows up front to eliminate waste or create force multiplier effects, with a high focus on organizational and people change management that ensues,” he said.
Photo: Ivan Balwan, Getty Images
