Question

discuss how the Affordable Care Act changed the staffing needs of health care organizations. Give specific attention to hospitals and primary care services. Also, include human resources concepts related to fulfilling those staffing needs.

Answer 1

#. Affordable Care Act

An act intended to increase health insurance quality and affordability, lower the uninsured rate by expanding insurance coverage, and reduce the costs of healthcare

#. The ACA has been the major contributor to the workforce supply and demand imbalance in healthcare in four major ways:

It added approximately 20 million new patients to the rolls of the insured populace since the act fully went into effect in January 2014. That’s a staggering increase in the number of healthcare consumers, and it quickly resulted in rising demand for healthcare services as the new enrollees began using their insurance. AMN Healthcare saw demand for nurses begin to spike in mid-2014, and that rise in demand has continued. Demand for therapists, technicians, technologists and other allied healthcare professionals also began to rise. The physician shortage has been a problem for years, and recent studies have indicated a widening gap between physician supply and demand.

The increase in patient care demand due to the ACA is not a one-time phenomenon but a long-range obligation. Health insurers refer to customers as “covered lives,” and that’s a significant phrase for the issue of rising clinical workforce demand. Because being insured is now the law of the land, most of the 20 million will be covered for the rest of their lives. So, the rising demand for the services of healthcare professionals will be cumulative — and progressive, too. Today’s new ACA enrollees, like all of us, will grow older and therefore need more care as time goes on. The increase in demand for the services of healthcare professionals, in part created by the ACA, is now embedded into our healthcare system. And the demand for healthcare services by those 20 million will increase as that group ages.

The ACA also incentivizes cost containment and population healthcare. And, the healthcare industry is becoming increasingly competitive. These regulatory and market changes are transforming the workforce by creating new roles and raising the profiles of many existing ones. Integrated care is being managed by a new cadre of care coordinators, who are usually registered nurses with degrees and additional training. Home health, the fastest growing industry in the country, needs more home health-experienced nurses and therapists. The health information technology revolution, fomented by both regulatory and competitive pressures, has created demand for medical coders, health information managers and many other technology roles. The rise in team-based care coupled with the extreme shortages of physicians has increased demand for advanced practice registered nurses, such as nurse practitioners, and physician assistant.

In today’s competitive landscape, leadership positions have become critical; demand is great to quickly fill openings with interim or permanent hires. At the same time, new leadership positions are being created, such as chief population health officer, chief experience officer and chief clinical transformation officer. It’s widely recognized in the healthcare industry today that a leadership vacancy can be very detrimental to competitiveness, quality and strategic planning at a healthcare enterprise. Like most other professional roles in healthcare, there is rising demand for leaders, too.