The aging population presents a microcosm of the U.S. population in terms of the intense challenges facing the health workforce.  Perhaps for no other population is there such a close relationship between health and social issues and services.  Thus, examination of ways to improve and change the health workforce environment for the aging can provide valuable lessons for the nation.  

There is general agreement among experts that existing shortages across the health professions will become more acute as the elderly population grows.  However, shortages are only one part of the crisis.  Current models of workforce education and training are not adequately preparing the next generation of health care providers to meet the needs of older Americans.  In addition, an uneven patchwork of state and federal workforce policy continues to exacerbate provider shortages and hinder the delivery of quality care to the aging population.  Health care financing is particularly troubling in the long-term care arena, hindering innovation and the emergence of new models of care.  Finally, there is a lack of adequate data, research, and analysis of political, social, and demographic trends and their impact on the health workforce.

As the health needs of the aging increase and health workforce shortages grow policymakers, educators, health professionals, providers, industry leaders, and  other concerned stakeholders must consider how best to address the health workforce in a strategic and comprehensive fashion.  Policymakers must particularly question whether appropriate and effective decision-making can occur within the existing policy framework and, if not, the most promising alternatives to ensure an effective health workforce for the nation.

To resolve these issues and prepare the nation for increased health care needs, the health workforce must be made a priority domestic policy issue. For several years, the Association of Academic Health Centers (AAHC) has focused attention on the critical need for a new coordinated national health workforce planning initiative. During the health reform debate, the AAHC urged policymakers to develop an integrated, comprehensive national health workforce policy that recognizes and compensates for the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of current decentralized multi-stakeholder decision making.  The establishment of the National Health Care Workforce Commission is a powerful step to achieve that goal.

Today, with increasing pressures to meet the diverse needs of the aging for care in the coming decades, the AAHC recommends that leaders and decision-makers in both the public and private sectors:

• Make the health workforce a priority issue.
• Ensure that the  National Health Care Workforce Commission has the resources to plan and develop a comprehensive national health workforce policy.
• Ensure that the National Health Care Workforce Commission engages federal, state, public, and private stakeholders with the goal of promoting harmonization of regulations and standards and addressing the pressing workforce issues of the nation.

With the aging baby boomer population, the need for a greater number of trained people in the health professions goes well beyond nurses and home care workers.  Shortages across the professions will be exacerbated by the retirement of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dentists and other professionals.  In 2004, 23 percent of licensed pharmacists, for example, indicated they were leaving the profession within the year and 80 percent of pharmacy directors said they would leave within the decade. Substantial retirements of faculty in all schools of the health professions add to the problem.

With the overwhelming need for a health workforce for the nation, President Obama should be focusing his Jobs Initiative on education and innovative training programs for the health workforce.  President Obama should be looking for ways to provide incentives to academic health centers and their health professions schools for new ideas and innovative ways to develop a quality health workforce in a short time frame. 

One way is to receive funding and other incentives to create new career ladders for those people who are already employed within the health system and want to raise their skill levels and receive education in one of the more-skilled professions (and this can include the myriad allied health, imaging, medical records and IT jobs that are critical to the system).

There should also be funding to health professions schools to create innovative, perhaps fast tracked, retraining programs for the thousands of people who are losing their jobs in America’s dying manufacturing industries. 

The Obama Administration needs to look beyond small business and the green industries with regard to JOBS.  The health workforce should be the priority when it comes to jobs.