Her Campus Logo Her Campus Logo
Wellness > Health

The Shortage of Healthcare Workers in Modern America

The opinions expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not reflect the views of Her Campus.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Indy chapter.

Currently the U.S. is dealing with a healthcare crisis. There is a shortage of healthcare workers in the U.S. and in recent studies it shows that this shortage will only be getting worse in the next few years. This isn’t necessarily a new problem that has just risen, but it has been a constant threat since the early 2000s. We’ve pushed back this crisis for too long. It is time to address this issue now because it’s not going to go away. As time goes on with little to no action, it will only continue to worsen. This is a serious problem and in this article I hope to address the shortage of healthcare workers, the healthcare system, its problem areas, and possible solutions that can ultimately hinder the effects of the healthcare crisis we are in. I will do this by beginning with why this crisis is happening and how the growth of the elderly population will only worsen it over time. 

First things first, have you ever talked to your grandparents or great grandparents and they tell you how they had 9 siblings? Well then they were in what our history books describe as the time of the baby boomers. While it may sound like a good thing that so many children were born at that time, it really isn’t, because now, decades later, we are paying for it. Due to the high number of children born during the baby-boomer generation (1946-1964), there will be a point in the near future where there will be a higher number of elderly citizens. Now you may ask, what is wrong with that? Well, did you know that this number of elderly citizens will surpass the total number of youth and adolescence in the U.S.? Isn’t that crazy? Our medical advances have drastically changed our healthcare system over the past couple of decades, and we now have exceptionally innovative medicine. It is exciting that our medicine today is the best of its time, because that means that people, like some in the baby boomer generation, are able to live longer with chronic illnesses that would have been otherwise fatal. With that being said, these people will need healthcare services for more extended periods of time. In an article from Duquesne University the School of Nursing it states that the “over-65 population will grow by 48% by 2032” indicating that more people, especially the elderly, are going to need healthcare workers to care for them and their needs (Duquesnes University). The article also shows that as early as 2025 there will be a shortage of approximately 400,000 home health aides, 29,400 nurse practitioners, and shortages in other healthcare fields across the board. That means that there will be fewer healthcare workers out in the field in the next couple of years. That is a bit terrifying in regards to our health and the safety of our families. As a society we must find a way to increase the amount of workers in our healthcare system because it will be vital for the future of our population (including our families and us) and ultimately the success of our healthcare systems in the U.S. 

During the Covid-19 pandemic, our healthcare system made amazing discoveries regarding who can provide the best care, specifically in the time of the pandemic. During the first part of the pandemic, the virus targeted our elderly community; causing them to get really sick which eventually led to a lot of deaths. As described in the article, “How States Can Expand Health Care Access in Rural Communities” with the immense amount of people experiencing symptoms of covid, many physicians and caregivers would develop symptoms of burnout. Physicians and caregivers were working constantly and were put under extremely stressful conditions while at work. Not to mention, unpaid caregivers were home constantly after losing their jobs and did not receive any social or financial support. While many physicians and emergency personnel were experiencing these issues, non-physician healthcare workers stepped up and took on new roles, having the ability to learn and do more of the things that a physician would have the power to do normally. This is very beneficial considering that some of these healthcare workers are able to provide much needed care to a variety of people even now after the pandemic is over. The only downside is that while some healthcare workers were still able to practice the things they learned after the pandemic ended,  a majority couldn’t. As stated by Waldrop and Gee, besides the matter of schooling needed for some of these positions, higher ranked healthcare workers in our society chose to restrict these types of practices even though non physicians have the training essential for helping out in these scopes of practice.

This is especially common in nursing homes. As Mark Barna states in his article “Nursing homes struggle to hire staff, keep up with expenses” he describes the huge hit that nursing homes took during and after the pandemic especially in regards to staffing shortages. In his article, he goes on to explain that staff in nursing homes deal with very harsh working conditions, including long hours, low wages, unsafe working conditions, and symptoms of burnout. I have seen this in my own life. My younger sister is a senior in highschool, but has her CNA certification and works in a nursing home in my hometow while she’s been in school. She puts 100% into her job, but does experience some of these things I have mentioned prior. Aside from harsh working conditions, she works constantly and does her job well; but nurses will look down on her because of her age. She describes it as if the nurses feel that they have seniority over her and disregard her hard work and ethics. She is the hardest worker I know, and truly cares for each and everyone of the people she provides care for on a day to day basis. Our society preys off of the downfall of others, and that can be especially common in the anarchy of our healthcare system. We are coming into a more dire time now. More than ever, we will be needing a stronger band of healthcare workers that have the ability to provide the right care and work together to fulfill what our society needs, which is really good healthcare. And that starts with fixing our educational system.

In the U.S., there are many barriers that medical students have to jump through in order to begin working in the healthcare field. One of those includes the amount of years it takes to get through medical school. Having a longer time for students to go through school causes the turnover rate of healthcare workers that enter the field to be slower compared to other job positions in the workforce. On top of the slow turnover, medical school is very expensive and often not affordable. Most medical students that apply have to take out student loans in order to pay their way through school, as stated in the article, “high levels of student loan debt can lead physicians to pursue high salaries” (Waldrop and Gee 3). While this does not sound like an issue at first, it is because higher salaries will usually be in more urbanized areas like bigger cities. That makes it an incentive because newly graduated healthcare workers will want to get jobs in bigger cities with better pay. Another possible solution to this problem is providing more health degrees and certifications online that can be accessible to people and students interested in pursuing a career in the healthcare field (Duquesne University).

Medical students that flock to bigger cities cause a lot of the healthcare shortages that are seen in more rural areas of the country. While only a small percentage of Americans live in rural areas, rural communities continue to make up two thirds majority of the healthcare shortages in the U.S. (Waldrop, Gee 2). Rural communities have very poor, to almost no healthcare resources. If someone were to need a hospital, there would be a bigger chance of a person dying while trying to get to the nearest one if the drive is between 30 minutes to an hour away. By the time that person has made it to a hospital, they would either be dead or there wouldn’t be enough resources that would help. This is why it is very urgent that newly graduated healthcare workers are able to pay off their student loans. Even though rural areas tend to pay much less than a healthcare facility in a bigger city; if healthcare workers had less amounts to worry about in student loans, they would be more willing to move to these rural areas. The government does offer state loan repayment initiatives, but repayments of at most $50,000 represent only a small portion of student loans. That is less than 25 percent of medical graduates’ average debts (Waldrop, Gee 4). In the overall sense of things, the money provided from the state only creates a small dent in what medical students have to pay back over an extended amount of time. It does not help rural communities in the long run, because graduates will still aim for higher wages in bigger cities whereas these communities do not have the funding to offer such high wages. But there are other efficient ways that have come out that ultimately help rural communities receive better healthcare. 

Burnout is a leading symptom and cause a lot of healthcare workers to quit especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. Burnout is an increasing concern for the U.S. healthcare system as stated by Brad Younggen, MD. He goes on to say that “from higher turnover rates to reduced quality of care and worsening health outcomes, burnout can have a profound impact on not just providers, but patients as well”. Burnout is defined as a long-term stress reaction that is marked by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and a lack of any sort of feeling of personal accomplishment. Data found from the Mayo Clinic proceedings journal found that approximately “63 percent of doctors have reported at least one symptom of burnout which is a 44 percent spike since 2017” (Brad Younggen). Since the pandemic we have learned that working too much can cause a lot of stress especially to people that work in the healthcare system. Doctors should not have to bear the weight of their patients’ care all on their own. To reduce the decreasing rate of healthcare workers that remain in the healthcare industry, we need to provide solutions that will help them bear the burdens of providing the best of care possible to their patients. One of those includes telemedicine.

Rural communities are one of the major areas that benefit from telemedicine. As defined in an article by Waldrop and Gee, “telemedicine is the use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support long-distance clinical care and patient education”. It helps patients that have to travel long distances in order to receive any sort of healthcare. During the Covid-19 pandemic telemedicine was a way for patients to have access to immediate healthcare. It also gave doctors and other healthcare workers a break from seeing patients constantly in person and lowered the amount of burnout that health professionals had during the pandemic. The CDC states, telehealth medicine is a good way for doctors to monitor their patients’ conditions, especially the elderly population with chronic illnesses like heart or lung disease. It provides doctors with better abilities to monitor their patients which is essential to improving the patients’ quality of life and reducing the number of hospital visits. Telehealth improves job satisfaction and provides healthcare workers with more of a work-life balance that has become super popular in the workforce now more than ever. If we can use technology as more of an enabler as stated in this article by Brad Younggen MD, “ telehealth can help clinicians address the factors that contribute to burnout” such as eliminating the inefficient use of time, to a lack of autonomy and over prioritizing profitability, and making sure patients receive the care they need. Some may say that telehealth can seem very daunting to clinicians and uncomfortable for patients especially in rural communities where they might not have access to these resources (Waldrop, Gee 10). But with the amount of technology we have access to now, as long as a patient has access to a mobile phone or computer, they will be able to use these telehealth services. At this present time, most rural areas that were once very spotty with internet connectivity now have access to some type of internet carrier. This will help with the shortage of healthcare workers in the U.S. as doctors and physicians will be able to assist their patients from afar and limit travel times and in person appointments. It will also eliminate the risk of healthcare workers leaving the industry due to burnout. 

This leads me to draw upon possible solutions that can diminish the continuous shortage of healthcare workers in the U.S. There are a lot of ways to solve this issue. In this article we discussed one of them above which was using telehealth services. Telemedicine would help doctors create a more flexible schedule that can fluctuate with the needs of their patients (Brad Younggen, MD). As described in Hiring Alone Won’t Solve the Healthcare Worker Shortage Anthony Barrueta tells us about another possible solution. He says that by creating a team-based approach healthcare workers can have the ability to provide better care to their patients. In doing so, this approach would free up doctor’s time from tasks that are easily manageable by other healthcare workers, it allows them to see more patients in a very efficient and faster way. The Kaiser Permanente organization has created a team model that they already utilize in their everyday facilitative care. That being said, the article continues by calling for policymakers to begin to utilize and support this approach, “so they can advance legislation that fosters, not hampers, healthcare professionals working together”(Barrueta). Our use of technology and medicine is very innovative compared to other third world countries where healthcare resources are very slim. It makes a lot of sense to utilize our medicine and resources in all sorts of capacities including healthcare workers working together. Government and state officials also need to provide funds to help create more solutions in regards to this healthcare shortage. This includes providing resources for hospitals in rural areas, and paying off medical student loans. Doing these things would help communities thrive and young healthcare workers to get out into a variety of areas across the country including the more rural ones. With that being said, the government should also provide financial assistance to caregivers both unpaid and paid ones. Especially, in nursing homes and people that choose to stay at home and work full-time caring for their loved ones and other individuals. We can’t prevent the shortage of healthcare workers, but we can advocate for more awareness of the situation and get more people involved from our communities. 

Works Cited

Barna, Mark. “Nursing Homes Struggle to Hire Staff, Keep up with Expenses.” The Nation’s Health, vol. 53, no. 3, 1 May 2023, pp. 1–10, www.thenationshealth.org/content/53/3/1.1. Accessed 16 Apr. 2024.

Barrueta, Anthony. “Hiring Alone Won’t Solve the Health Care Worker Shortage.” About.kaiserpermanente.org, Kaiser Permanente, 7 Mar. 2023, about.kaiserpermanente.org/news/hiring-alone-wont-solve-health-care-worker-shortage. Accessed 16 Apr. 2024.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Telehealth in Rural Communities.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 8 Sept. 2022, www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/factsheets/telehealth-in-rural-communities.htm. Accessed 16 Apr. 2024.

“The Shortage of Healthcare Workers in the U.S.” Duquesne University School of Nursing, 26 June 2020, onlinenursing.duq.edu/post-master-certificates/shortage-of-healthcare-workers/. Accessed 15 Apr. 2024. 

Waldrop, Thomas, and Emily Gee. “How States Can Expand Health Care Access in Rural Communities.” Center for American Progress, 1 Nov. 2022, www.americanprogress.org/article/how-states-can-expand-health-care-access-in-rural-communities/. Accessed 15 Apr. 2024. 

Younggren, MD, Brad. “How Telehealth Can Save Providers’ Sanity and Keep Them in the Profession.” Health Data Management, 22 Feb. 2023, www.healthdatamanagement.com/articles/how-telehealth-can-save-providers-sanity-and-keep-them-in-the-profession#:~:text=Practicing%20via%20telehealth%20also%20enables. Accessed 16 Apr. 2024.

My name is Gabbi. I am a psychology major with a minor in business administration. I am from Fort Wayne, IN and go to the University of Indianapolis.