Therapy assistants represent approximately half of the therapy workforce in skilled nursing facilities. Employment of therapy assistants enables skilled nursing facilities to provide more therapy services at lower costs. As new payment mechanisms provide incentives for therapy in skilled nursing facilities, employment of therapy assistants may be a cost-effective way to continue to provide services…
Pharmacists are increasingly recognized as crucial members of the health care team. To date, no single source of information exists that best characterizes the increasingly complex nature of the pharmacist workforce. Improving awareness of the potential roles of pharmacists would help to more effectively incorporate them into the health care team and improve care. This…
Pharmacists provide a broad spectrum of services depending on their practice setting and scope-of-practice laws within their state. Lately, pharmacists have been increasingly used in a variety of ways, taking on roles such as medication therapy management, chronic disease management, patient education, health promotion, and disease prevention. To take on this surge in demand, states…
The traditional role of physical therapists is to prescribe exercises and provide hands-on care to help patients develop, maintain, and restore functional ability that may be limited by injuries, aging, and chronic or progressive diseases. A primary impact of the COVID-19 emergency on physical therapists has been an involuntarily reduction of employment due to a…
The health care industry lost 1.5 million jobs between March and April 2020, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. Losses spread across the major health care sectors of hospitals (22.7%), ambulatory care settings (39.6%), and long-term care (LTC) facilities (37.7%). The job loss in LTC facilities (eg, skilled nursing facilities, residential care,…
The primary role of the clinical laboratory workforce is to collect and analyze biological specimens to provide patients and medical providers information for preventing, diagnosing, treating, and managing disease. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical role that the clinical laboratory workforce plays in the healthcare system. This policy brief focuses on 6 clinical lab…
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a dynamic effect on the health workforce. Redeployment, furlough, and layoff are among the terms used to describe various work statuses. Some terms are related and overlapping, potentially causing confusion for employees, media, policymakers, and researchers who may be interested in tracking health care employment trends throughout the pandemic. This…
Increasing nursing workforce diversity is essential to quality health care. Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) programs are a primary path to becoming a registered nurse and an important source of nursing diversity. While public institutions contribute the highest total number of diverse ADN graduates, private for-profit institutions have the highest percentage of non-white graduates. This…
Background checks are intended to ensure a quality workforce, but they may also exclude qualified workers. Though these background checks may appear straightforward, they rely on information from a variety of sources, and are governed by a complex regulatory environment. Various laws, industry norms, and court precedents shape what background information is gathered and/or maintained….
Health workforce research and planning consists of using supply data at multiple levels (ie, national, state, local, etc). Unfortunately, the variation in the allied health workforce means that supply data for these workers is less likely to be easily available. This report compares allied health workforce supply data (including 9 separate occupations) across multiple years…
