The health workforce is a vital component of the country’s health care delivery system. Efforts to expand access to care, improve the quality of care, or address health disparities depend on the availability of a diverse, well-trained, and adequately sized health workforce. Providers have faced the ongoing challenge of health workforce shortages, which worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic and persists today.
We were delighted to receive the largest number of abstract submissions for the 2024 Annual Research Meeting in the past four years, reflecting the increasing importance and urgency of health workforce issues not only within the health care system but also in society as a whole. This year, we are excited about the diverse lineup of health workforce theme panels, podium presentations, and posters. These sessions will create inspiring and collaborative spaces for engaging in thought-provoking discussions.
Here are some sneak peeks of what you can expect from this year’s health workforce theme sessions:
Health care workers’ well-being and strategies
Building a thriving health workforce stands as a cornerstone for achieving the other four elements of the "quintuple aim" for health care improvement: improving population health and care experiences, reducing costs, and advancing health equity. We will dive into the topics of health care workers’ well-being and strategies to mitigate burnout through two podium sessions. On Saturday, June 29th, the podium session, “Nursing Workforce Issues and Challenges: Work Environment Matters" will kick off our series of health workforce theme sessions. This session will delve into concerns within the nursing workforce, including studies examining the effects of extended working hours and workplace conditions on patient outcomes, nurse turnover, and workplace violence. Then, on Tuesday, July 2nd, the podium session, Understanding and Addressing Burnout in Health Care: Charting a Path Forward, will explore the long-standing issue of burnout in the health care workforce from various angles: advanced practice providers-physician collaboration, Veterans Health Administration, organizational cultural change, and social determinants of health. Collectively, this session aims to explore potential strategies to mitigate health care workforce burnout.
Health care workforce in underserved communities
There have been longstanding efforts to recruit health professionals to practice in underserved areas. A variety of methods have been used to identify areas with substantial unmet need for health care services. The resulting shortage area designations are often used in conjunction with provider incentive programs (loan repayment, and others) to address workforce shortages in high need communities. We will have the opportunity to consider this topic in two podium sessions. On Sunday June 30, the podium session Identifying Access Barriers to Care in Underserved Communities will present research on strategies used to identify underserved areas as well as findings from a trend analysis to better understand factors influencing the delivery of oral health services in the safety net. On Tuesday, July 2, the podium session, Using Provider Incentive Programs to Expand Access to Care in Underserved Communities will focus on the impacts of incentive programs in attracting and retaining clinicians who work in underserved communities, as well as offering insights on racial and ethnic concordance of clinicians and underserved populations.
Future of health care workforce
To proactively respond to the ongoing challenges of health workforce shortages, the importance of making all-out efforts to build capacity cannot be overstated. At this year’s ARM, we will explore a range of critical topics shaping the future of the health workforce like effective projection modeling, strategies to build workforce capacity in underserved areas, and programs that support for worker resilience. Through two policy roundtables and two podium sessions, we will delve into key issues and discussions that are vital for understanding and shaping the trajectory of health care professionals. On Saturday, June 29th, the policy roundtable, “Challenges in Projecting Health Workforce Supply and Demand,” will explore opportunities for enhancing the robustness of the models and offers insights into effective communication strategies for sharing results with clinicians, policy makers, educators and employers. Then, on Sunday, June 30th, the policy roundtable, “Registered Nurses: The Missing Link in Primary Care Transformation,” will bring together international experts on registered nurses (RNs)’ role in primary care transformation. Speakers will share how primary care practices can maximize the utilization of RNs to improve patient outcomes, reduce costs, and even generate revenue. On Monday, July 1st, two podium sessions in the afternoon will bring us together to explore the drivers of physician career decisions and ways to expand the pipelines for health professions. The session, “Physician Workforce: Understanding the Drivers of Practice Choices,” will explore factors influencing physicians’ career decisions, including specialty and practice location. The demographic impacts on attrition from the field will be also examined. Following that, the session, “Navigating the Health Professions Education Pipeline,” will present research focused on programs and policies that support students’ progression in the educational pipelines for medicine and behavioral health professions.
Please check out the full schedule for health workforce sessions along with additional details: https://academyhealth.confex.com/academyhealth/2024arm/meetingapp.cgi/Subject/506