New Report Describes Health Staffing Shortage

A new report released July 9, 2007, by PriceWaterhouseCoopers outlines a potential future crisis in U.S. health care staffing. The report, titled "What Works: Healing the Healthcare Staffing Shortage," states that the combined shortage of physicians and nurses "may be more than the industry can bear."

The Health Resources and Services Administration projects a net shortage of more than 24,000 physicians across specialties by 2020. Nursing shortage problems include denial of applicants to nursing schools, low retention and hospital executives' denial about the state of nurse dissatisfaction. The report says that too often, hospital executives focus on short-term solutions, such as the stop-gap measure of using temporary staffing. Nearly five percent of all hospital nursing hours are filled by temps, one reason nurses are moving away from hospital jobs.

The report includes data and in-depth interviews. It is available in exchange for registration at PWC's Web site.