Worries over the state of the American medical workforce has been a dominant theme at the HIMSS annual healthcare conference, overshadowing the typical futuristic discussions about the potential of technology in the industry.
Attendees in Orlando this year instead returned again and again to the foundation of the medical system — its doctors, nurses and staff — who are leaving in droves, and without whom very little of that futuristic tech capability is possible in practice.
Despite the attrition, which has hit hospitals especially hard, experts are optimistic that if healthcare organizations cut down on pain points, prioritize staff well-being and improve people management, they can boost retention.
Medical workers join the field because they feel a calling, and it’s possible to refuel that spark even after two years of COVID-19 that has stoked fatigue and frustration among healthcare staff, experts said at the conference.
To be sure, statistics point to a bleak outlook for the American healthcare workforce.
By the end of this year, a third of nurses plan to leave their jobs, surveys show, and a quarter of medical workers expect to depart in the near future. Additionally, almost half of U.S. doctors and nurses are considering leaving their current role in the next two to three years.
The studies on exit plans come amid historic staffing shortage in healthcare, created by what industry experts call a perfect storm of aggressive job competition, generational change and record burnout stemming from COVID-19.
For more than two years, wave after wave of coronavirus patients coincided with the acute stress of providing healthcare in an environment where some patients refused to believe there was a pandemic, and rising reports of assaults and verbal violence against healthcare workers.
“With the pandemic, things got worse, and people started leaving their jobs and looking for other opportunities,” Tamara Sunbul, medical director of clinical informatics at Saudi Arabia-based Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, said at a HIMSS panel on the workforce.
Despite recent job gains in healthcare making up for some pandemic losses, the sector is still down 306,000 jobs, or almost 2%, from pre-COVID-19 levels, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
