Health Care Professionals Healthcare Professionals the Paper

Health Care Professionals

Healthcare professionals

The paper is based on the healthcare professionals. It starts by analyzing the reasons why there may be physician shortage rather than a surplus in the United States. The paper as well analyses the factors that contribute to the nursing shortage in the U.S. And the roles of health professionals within the health care system. Lastly it covers the roles of a health service administrator within health care system of U.S.

There are various reasons why there may be a shortage of physicians rather than a surplus in the United State: In 1990s the main concepts was that physicians were to be trained in numbers that were much greater than the demand for medical care in the U.S. could support. Mixed reaction came from different corners, as majority recommended cutting down of about 20 to 25% of the physician-generating capacity of the country, a section of researchers warned of an impending oversupply, yet on the other hand others supported physician surplus, for example the media as well as organizations like American Medical Association were for the surplus number of physicians, (Williams, S. & Torrens, P., 2010). But today many look at it in another angle as they are now keen on the shortage as per the stand taken by such organizations like AMA, Association of American Medical Colleges among others.

The workforce related discussion which dominated 1990s was whether Medicare was to go on with its frequent funding of billion dollars for resident training. In an attempt to address the issue, Congress commissioned the Council on Graduate Medical Education (CGME) and the council came up with a report that the expected staffing ratio of one physician for every 370 citizens in the year 2000 was more than adequate and it was important for the country to scale back on residence funded programs. CGME did not do clear demonstration to show that rising physician supply will have a positive impact on health outcomes but believed that there should be cutting of 15% in controlling physician supply. Based on this strategy, majority point out a severe shortage of physicians as time went by, (West J. Med.,1991).

The rapid aging of the U.S. population in general, for instance the baby boomers forms another reason why there is a shortage of physicians in the future. Commonly patients who tend to be at age over 65 will always require more direct physician care as compared to the younger patients. Women as well have concentrated on the task of maintaining of homes/family and raising children making them have less time left for practice. All these act as pressure in the workforce to produce more physicians than fewer. This coupled with the retiring baby boomers gives rise to a higher population that need medical attention as advanced age approaches yet with a limited specialized workforce.

Factors that contribute to the nursing shortage in the United States can be as a result of: The aging of the workforce; number of nursing school enrollment declining; failure to employ nurses, emerging alternative job opportunities as well as declines in relative earnings. As the baby boomers starts to retire, as well as continuing complexity of the health care technology, U.S. face the risk of an aging nursing workforce as well as an explosion in the need for skilled workforce that will be in a position to utilize the new medical technology, (Tilden, N., 2001). As compared to other fields of profession, the earnings of the nurses tend to be averagely low making majority to opt to go to the other fields which offer good earnings. Failure to direct enough funds to the nursing faculty for their training and expansion leads to decline and shortage of nurses.

Public health professionals have various roles within the health care systems: They should be in a position to understand and apply new advances in science. This will help them in their attempt to make their work successful as well as dealing with the daily emerging health challenges. They as well need to apply new approaches to research, these approaches may involve researchers, practitioners plus the community to make a joint efforts in improving health and in understanding global health issues that tend to transcend national boundaries increasingly, (Gebbie, K., et.al., 2003). Public health professionals should be proficient in terms of communication for them to effectively interact with multiple audiences in understanding and incorporating their needs as well as perspectives of culturally diverse communities within the public health interventions. They should have the capability of identifying and addressing the numerous ethical issues that might come up within the public health practice and research. These should be handled effectively with a lot of care to avoid one party feeling unsatisfied.