Employment In Health Sector Research Articles

The effect of nursing home closure on local employment in the United States.

To estimate the effect of nursing home closure on local employment, overall, and by rurality. We obtained 2008-2018 county-level data from the Quarterly Workforce Indicators, Medicare Provider of Services, Area Health Resource, and Urban Influence Codes files. From 2008 to 2018, 878 counties experienced at least one nursing home closure, and 2055 counties did not experience a closure. Using a difference-in-difference study design, we compare the changes of total employment, health sector employment and non-health sector employment over time between counties with and without a nursing home closure. We utilize the variation in the year and quarter of nursing home closures to estimate subsequent employment changes as well as employment trends before closure. We also account for contemporaneous events including nursing home entries and hospital entries and closures, and evaluate heterogeneity by rurality. We include data on nursing home closure from the Medicare Provider of Service file. Quarterly county-level employee counts were obtained from the Quarterly Workforce Indicators provided by the Census Bureau. County-level demographic data were obtained from the Area Health Resource Files. We use Urban Influence Codes from the Economic Research Service, Department of Agriculture, to classify metropolitan, micropolitan, and rural (noncore) counties. Health sector employment decreased by about 3.2%-4.1% (p < 0.01) in counties with a nursing home closure. The reduction was largest in rural counties (approximately 7.2%-9.4%, p < 0.01). The reduction in health sector employment persisted over time, particularly in rural counties. Overall, there was no discernable effect on non-health sector employment. Nursing home closure is associated with a persistent decline in health sector employment, particularly in rural counties, suggesting a reduction in the health care workforce and in the ability to sustain health care services supply, particularly in rural areas.

Factors Influencing Bridge Employment Engagement: With Reference on Health Sector in Sri Lanka

Purpose: Ageing population will eventually have a dramatic effect on the country’s economy, as it influences on the size of the labor force available. Indorsing longer working lives by encouraging retirees back to the work force has been encouraged by many as a viable option to combat this issue and one way to do this is through bridge employment. Bridge employment is paid work undertaken after retirement from the main vocation but before leaving the labor force completely. The aim of this study is to identify factors influencing bridge employment in health sector in Sri Lanka.&#x0D; Design: Comparing developed and developing context literatures, the study focused on how job-related factors (financial motives and organizational environment) and the societal-level factors (personal fulfillment and social relationship) affect to the bridge employment. Quantitative approach was used. Primary data were collected through a questionnaire survey. To fulfill the study aim, 296 employees representing doctors and nurses, were taken as the sample of this study. &#x0D; Findings: The binary logistic regression analysis results indicated that 21.9 per cent variation of the bridge employment can be explained by organizational environment, financial motives, social relationship and personal fulfillment. Among the factors, personal fulfillment, social relationship and organizational environment were significant determinants of bridge employment in health sector in Sri Lanka. Financial motive was not a significant predictor on bridge employment engagement.&#x0D; Research Implications: The study findings can aid to healthcare centers and pharmaceutical industry as great opportunity in gaining expertise knowledge of bridge employees by understanding influences of personal fulfillment, social relationship and organizational environment factors on their expectations. Further, the findings will be useful to local and global human resources specialists to access and evaluate the research findings to develop new HRM practices based on bride employment.&#x0D; Limitations: The responsiveness of older employees to providing data, is below than the expected responsiveness.

New Immigrant Health Professional’s Individual, Societal and Economic Impact of Ryerson University’s Internationally Trained Medical Doctors (ITMDs) Bridging Program: Results from a Pilot Bridge Training Program at the Chang School of Continuing Education

Although Canada is home to a large number of internationally educated health professionals, their skills and experiences are grossly underutilized in the Canadian healthcare landscape. Barriers to medical practice are pervasive, and as a result the majority of internationally trained medical doctors (ITMDs) work in “survival” jobs significantly below their skill level. The pilot ITMD Bridging Program was developed to provide an alternative path for ITMDs by providing the skills and competencies required for non-licensed health sector employment, ultimately aiming to improve integration of ITMDs into the Canadian workforce. This secondary research evaluates the ITMD Bridging Program by assessing the impact of the program at both individual and societal levels.Qualitative and quantitative data were used to evaluate the individual and societal impact of the program. Secondary data from participants’ entry and exit surveys, as well as key informant interviews conducted with ITMDs upon program completion were used for the analysis. The economic impact of the program and its overall utility to the economy of Ontario were assessed through literature review and social rate of return analysis.ITMDs program participants reported substantial improvements in skills related each of the core courses including health research methods, health informatics and data management, fundamentals of project management, as well as healthcare professionals communication and leadership skills. ITMDs also perceived the program to be a viable option to address human potential waste, enhance the economy, develop individual capacity building, and alleviate frustrations associated with labour market exclusion. The program is also economically viable at the societal level, and represents a rate of return of 6.52%.The ITMD Bridging Program has demonstrated that providing non-licensed health sector employment is a viable option for policymakers to consider in their efforts to address the current brain waste in the Ontario healthcare sector. Bridging programs similar to the ITMD Bridging Program have the capacity to impact individual outcomes of ITMDs, the economic landscape in Ontario, and Canada at large.

Health sector employment growth calls for improvements in labor productivity

While rising costs of healthcare have put increased fiscal pressure on public finance, job growth in the health sector has had a stabilizing force on overall employment levels – not least in times of economic crises.In 2014 EU-15 countries employed 21 million people in the health and social care sector. Between 2000 and 2014 the share of employed persons in this sector rose from 9.5% to 12.5% of the total labor force in EU-15 countries. Over time labor input growth has shifted towards residential care activities and social work while labor in human health activities including hospitals and ambulatory care still comprises the major share. About half of the human health labor force works in hospital. Variation of health and social care employment is large even in countries with generally comparable institutional structures. While standard measures of productivity in health and social care are not yet comparable across countries, we argue that labor productivity of a growing health work force needs more attention. The long-term stability of the health system will require care delivery models that better utilize a growing health work force in concert with smart investments in digital infrastructure to support this transition. In light of this, more research is needed to explain variations in health and social care labor endowments, to identify effective policy measures of labor productivity enhancement including enhanced efforts to develop comparable productivity indicators in these areas.

A note on the cyclical behavior of sectoral employment in the U.S.

Using data for 14 major sectors of the US private economy and the government from 1958 to 2014, this note examines the cyclical behavior of sectoral employment. In particular, it investigates if relative volatility and comovement of the cyclical component of sectoral employment with real GDP have changed over time. The cyclical components are extracted using the Hodrick–Prescott (H–P) filter and changes in cyclical properties are detected using rolling standard deviations and rolling correlations. The analysis suggests that these properties have changed substantially for a number of service sectors since the early 1980s. In particular, wholesale and retail trade, transportation and utility, information, financial activities, and professional and business services have experienced significant increases in relative volatility. Furthermore, while the positive correlation between the cyclical components of employment and real GDP has become stronger for wholesale trade, transportation and utility, financial activities, and professional and business services, it has become weaker for information services, leisure and hospitality, and other services. Furthermore, education and health sector employment have switched from being procyclical to countercyclical. Recognizing these changes are important and useful for future research on business cycle behavior of the US labor market and for policy formulation.

Health sector employment: a tracer indicator for universal health coverage in national Social Protection Floors.

BackgroundHealth sector employment is a prerequisite for availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality (AAAQ) of health services. Thus, in this article health worker shortages are used as a tracer indicator estimating the proportion of the population lacking access to such services: The SAD (ILO Staff Access Deficit Indicator) estimates gaps towards UHC in the context of Social Protection Floors (SPFs). Further, it highlights the impact of investments in health sector employment equity and sustainable development.MethodsThe SAD is used to estimate the share of the population lacking access to health services due to gaps in the number of skilled health workers. It is based on the difference of the density of the skilled health workforce per population in a given country and a threshold indicating UHC staffing requirements. It identifies deficits, differences and developments in access at global, regional and national levels and between rural and urban areas.ResultsIn 2014, the global UHC deficit in numbers of health workers is estimated at 10.3 million, with most important gaps in Asia (7.1 million) and Africa (2.8 million). Globally, 97 countries are understaffed with significantly higher gaps in rural than in urban areas. Most affected are low-income countries, where 84 per cent of the population remains excluded from access due to the lack of skilled health workers. A positive correlation of health worker employment and population health outcomes could be identified. Legislation is found to be a prerequisite for closing access as gaps.ConclusionsHealth worker shortages hamper the achievement of UHC and aggravate weaknesses of health systems. They have major impacts on socio-economic development, particularly in the world’s poorest countries where they act as drivers of health inequities. Closing the gaps by establishing inclusive multi-sectoral policy approaches based on the right to health would significantly increase equity, reduce poverty due to ill health and ultimately contribute to sustainable development and social justice.

The reorientation of market-oriented reforms in Swedish health-care

Sweden was an important pioneer of market-oriented reform in publicly funded health-care systems. Yet by the mid-1990s the county councils, which fund and manage most health-care, had substantially scaled back reforms based on provider competition while continuing to constrain health budgets. As policy makers faced new issues, they turned increasingly to longer-term and more cooperative contracts to define relations between hospitals and the county councils. Growing regionalization of government and hospital mergers further reconfigured acute care and limited opportunities for competition between hospitals. We seek to explain this reorientation of market-oriented reforms between 1989 and 1996 in terms of shifts in the positions taken by powerful policy actors, and in particular by county council politicians. During this period, elections moved liberal and conservative politicians, who were the most enthusiastic supporters of market-oriented reform, in and out of control of most county governments. Meanwhile many Social Democratic politicians gradually turned from initial support of competitive reform toward opposition. Politicians and county administrators from all parties were particularly concerned about controlling health expenditures during a period of recession. In addition, the public, politicians in the counties and municipalities, and health professionals resisted steps that threatened health sector employment and would have allowed market mechanisms, rather than governments, to determine the prices and distribution of health services. During the years under study Sweden's market-oriented reforms followed a course of development similar to that taken by other management and policy fashions (Abrahamson E. Management fashion, Academy of Management Review 1996;21: 254–85). At first the reforms enjoyed uncritical support by a broad spectrum of stakeholders. Gradually participants in the reform process recognized inherent tensions among the goals of the reform, conflicts between reform programs and fundamental social and political values, unrealistic assumptions about the effects of competition, technical and organizational obstacles to implementation, and threats to interest groups. Since 1998, there have been indications that Sweden may be entering yet another stage of experimentation with market-oriented reform.

Health sector reform and human resource management: Britain in comparative perspective

This article examines the impact of health service restructuring for employment practices in Europe, using Britain as the basis of comparison. It first considers trends in West European health care reform and examines the extent to which reform measures have been accompanied by changes in employment practices. It focuses on reforms of pay determination arrangements and work organization, examining in particular the experience of nurses, who form the largest occupational group. Finally, some of the implications for a future research agenda are considered. It concludes that research on health sector employment practices is under-developed and outlines a research agenda that recognizes the importance of workplace restructuring within a comparative framework.

Medical care employment in the United States, 1968 to 1993: The importance of health sector jobs for African Americans and women.

The purpose of this study was to elucidate the social and economic impact of health sector employment. US medical care employment was analyzed for each year between 1968 and 1993, with data from the March Current Population Survey. Between 1968 and 1993, medical care employment grew from 4.32 million to 11.40 million persons, accounting for 5.7% of all jobs in 1968 and 8.4% in 1993. Today, one seventh of employed women work in medical care; they hold 78% of medical care jobs. One fifth of all employed African-American women work in medical care. African-Americans hold 15.5% of jobs in the health sector: they hold 24.1% of the jobs in nursing homes, 15.9% of the jobs in hospitals, but only 5.6% of the jobs in practitioners' offices. Hispanics constitute 6.4% of medical care employees. Real wages rose 25% to 50% between 1968 and 1993 for most health occupations. Wages of registered nurses rose 86%; physicians' incomes rose 22%. Wages of nursing home workers were far lower than those of comparable hospital workers, and the gap has widened. In 1993, 11.7% of all medical care workers lacked health insurance and 597 000 lived in poverty. Hospital cuts and the continuing neglect of long-term care exacerbate unemployment and poverty among women and African Americans.

The insertion of the nurse into the work market place--some considerations

The present study makes some considerations on nurse's insertion in work field. It rises some data on the increase of employment in health sector, as well as seeks to identify some determinants of this increasment. It brings up some informations on nurse's manpower, the absorption of nursing professional ad the ability of generating employment. Finally, the study identify some trends perceived in the absorption of the professional nurse.