Staffing the labor-intensive health care industry
Econometrics
One issue in staffing the labor-intensive health care industry is trying to get the right people in the right places. That means we should get needs prediction and training cycles right. We suffer from over production of some professionals, under production of others and misdistribution of nearly all. This exercise encourages you to look at the professional workforce and its implications for health administrators.
Description
You are an administrator in a health care organization and you feel your board does not have a good grasp of the national issues of workforce adequacy and distribution. You are preparing a white paper, which is, essentially, an essay, written to inform a specific audience of readers to help them understand an issue. Since a white paper is often persuasive, it lies somewhere between an academic essay (in authoritative content and documentation) and a marketing piece in providing a point of view (intended to help make a decision or solve a problem).
Your white paper should be no more than 400 words in length and should explain why you feel the board should add this topic to an upcoming retreat agenda. You want to impress on them what the current and upcoming workforce issues are and how they will require strategic attention. You want them to have the national picture and you can, if you wish, supplement that with a local perspective as well.
You can focus on a particular organization or make one up. You can focus on one profession or consider the topic more generally, depending on your particular interest and/or your own potential need for the information. Consult your readings for the week, plus at least two other reputable sources published within the last four years (professional journal articles or reports from reputable, objective agencies) regarding professional workforce adequacy.
