President Obama –and the Congress for that matter–need to focus on JOBS in the HEALTH WORKFORCE.  The Bureau of  Labor Statistics reports that the health sector ranks high among the areas that will provide the greatest number of new jobs over the next decade.  Four million jobs will be created in the health care sector will be a leader in producing new jobs,  including high-skill, high-paying jobs like doctors and nurses.  Among the top ten occupations needed will be:  Registered nurses, home  health aides, personal and home care aides,  and nursing aides, orderlies and attendants. 

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.