Briefing Book
The Health Care Workforce
This briefing focused on the health care workforce. It provided an overview of the types and numbers of health care professionals, reviewed requirements for licensure and certification, and highlighted geographic disparities in the distribution of physicians and other clinicians. Medicare's financing of direct and indirect graduate medical education for physicians was described; the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's recommendations to change how GME is financed were also discussed. The session also provided an overview of programs operated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, principally through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Defense that support the education and training of various health care professionals. The session concluded with a discussion of health care delivery system changes, concomitant changes in the roles of those working in health care, and the implications of those changes for health care workforce education and training programs.
Speakers
Erin P. Fraher, PhD, MPP (bio)
Director, Health Workforce Research and Policy, Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Slides: "A Primer on the Health Workforce in the United States"
Mark Miller, PhD (bio)
Executive Director, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission
Slides: "Graduate Medical Education Payments"
Kathleen M. King, MA
(bio)
Director, Health Care, U.S. Government Accountability Office
Slides: "Federal Health Care Workforce Education and Training Programs"
Dr. Fraher's second presentation
Slides: "The Workforce Needed to Staff Value-Based Models of Care"
Briefing Materials
- "Health Professions Education and Professional Obligations" (The Basics, April 30, 2012)
- "Health Workforce Needs: Projections Complicated by Practice and Technology Changes" (Issue Brief No. 851, October 22, 2013)
- "Community Health Workers: A Front Line for Primary Care?" (Issue Brief No. 846, September 17, 2012)
- "Aligning Graduate Medical Education with Public Policy" (Background Paper No. 82, September 14, 2011)
- "Tapping the Potential of the Health Care Workforce: Scope-of-Practice and Payment Policies for Advanced Practice Nurses and Physician Assistants" (Background Paper No. 76, July 6, 2010)
- "Health Care Shortage Designations: HPSA, MUA, and TBD" (Background Paper No. 75, June 4, 2010)
- "The Medical Education of Physicians" (Background Paper No. 73, February 17, 2010)
Additional Resources
The Current and Future Workforce
- National Center for Health Workforce Analysis, Bureau of Health Workforce, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), "Sex, Race, and Ethnic Diversity of U.S. Health Occupations (2010-2012)" (January 2015)
- National Center for Health Workforce Analysis, Bureau of Health Workforce, HRSA, "The Future of the Nursing Workforce: National- and State-Level Projections, 2012-2025" (December 2014)
- National Center for Health Workforce Analysis, Bureau of Health Professions, HRSA, "Projecting the Supply and Demand for Primary Care Practitioners Through 2020" (November 2013)
- National Center for Health Workforce Analysis, HRSA, "Projecting the Supply of Non-Primary Care Specialty and Subspecialty Clinicians: 2010-2025" (July 2014)
- Institute of Medicine (IOM), The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health (October 5, 2010)
- IOM, Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce (April 11, 2008)
- Sarah Goodell, Catherine Dower, and Edward O’Neil, "Primary Care Health Workforce in the United States" (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Synthesis Project, Policy Brief No. 22, July 2011)
- Thomas S. Bodenheimer and Mark D. Smith, "Primary Care: Proposed Solutions to the Physician Shortage Without Training More Physicians" (Health Affairs, 32, no. 11 (November 2013): pp. 1881-1886)
Graduate Medical Education (GME)
- IOM, Graduate Medical Education that Meets the Nation’s Health Needs (July 29, 2014)
- Michael M.E. Johns, Chair, Ensuring an Effective Physician Workforce for America: Recommendations for an Accountable Graduate Medical Education System (proceedings of a conference sponsored by the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation held in Atlanta, Georgia, October 24 to 25, 2010; New York: Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, 2010)
- Debra Weinstein, MD, Chair, Ensuring an Effective Physician Workforce for the United States: Recommendations for Graduate Medical Education to Meet the Needs of the Public (proceedings of a conference the second of two conferences sponsored by the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation held in Atlanta, Georgia, May 2011; New York: Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, November 2011)
- Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), "Graduate Medical Education Financing: Focusing on Educational Priorities" (ch. 4 in Report to the Congress: Aligning Incentives in Medicare, June 2010)
Other Federal Investments
- U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), "Health Care Workforce: Federal Investments in Training and the Availability of Data for Workforce Projections" (GAO-14-510T, April 9, 2014)
- GAO, "Health Care Workforce: Federally Funded Training Programs in Fiscal Year 2012" (GAO-13-709R, August 2013)
- Elayne J. Heisler, Congressional Research Service, “Physician Supply and the Affordable Care Act,” 7-5700, January 15, 2013.
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