Research studies recently conducted on the healthcare industry reveal a worrying trend for professionals in the healthcare industry and the relevant authorities tasked with the responsibility of healthcare provision and management. At a broader level, the worrying trend has not excluded patients, both potential and the currently admitted especially those suffering from chronic and terminal ailments and diseases. It is important to note that this worrying trend is expansive in nature so to say, as its implications for the general healthcare industry surpass regional borders. In a sense, both the developed countries such as the United States and the developing countries geographically located in African and Asian continents feel the pinch of this latest development in the healthcare industry. Much of the blame has been directed at the baby boom generation who occupy this segment of the age bracket in the contemporary times. In 2005, the United States bureau of labor statistics released its findings on workforce projections for 2004-2014. Information from these statistics indicated an increase of more than seven million healthcare professionals aged between the ages of 55 and 64. Moreover, the statistics indicated a projected increase in the number of healthcare workers aged above 65 years, with an estimated seven times faster increase compared to the rest of the workforce. It is the purpose of this paper therefore to explore the implications of this aging workforce for health care organizations.
Taylor (2013) argues that the implications of the aging workforce for healthcare organizations should not be looked at from a positive perspective despite the presence of varied connotation associated with it. In the mindset of the scholar, more benefits accrue from this age bracket of healthcare workers compared to those that occupy the lower age bracket. There are various reasons put forward as substantiation for this kind of argument. An aging workforce, herein referred to as mature workers, are well versed in the requirements of their trade due to a lengthy period spent in the provision of health care for varied number of patients with varying healthcare complications. Unlike other professions and disciplines, the medical profession is not theoretical in nature but relies on exact measures and ways so as to effectively deal with its core challenges involving human health. The importance and value attached to the human health, which is the key concern of the profession, dictates that any individual handling it should be adequately and well prepared so as to avoid chances of realizing what is not expected. What is not expected in this sense means that the individual under discussion (the medical worker), should try and avoid the chances of additional complications in the health challenge being treated.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Research consistently find that the level of professionalism portrayed by an individual in the course of employment, especially for professions that are not theoretical in nature such as the medical profession, tend to increase with the length of time taken by the individual to carry out his or her duties. The underlying line of thought from this perspective is that a professional who has taken a considerable length of time in the profession gets the needed amount of experience and expertise necessary to the interest of the profession compared to a fellow professional with a limited length of time in the profession. The aging workforce serves as a typical example of this category due to the length of time they have taken practicing their skills and expertise. It is a matter of common sense to argue that the aging workforce in the healthcare industry has handled many cases of health complications ranging from the mild to the most complicated and life threatening. There is, therefore, a reservoir of knowledge and expertise existing among the aging workforce that ordinarily may not be in possession of the new entrants into the healthcare industry. The big question at this point should be the correlation between the existing reservoir of knowledge and expertise possessed by the aging workforce, and the implications for health care organizations. From the explanation, it clearly apparent that there is a level of importance attached to the healthcare professionals by the healthcare organizations. Of more concern is the importance given to the expertise and professionalism possessed by these professionals to the provision of healthcare which forms the fundamental premise of the healthcare organizations.
The need to retain the reservoir of expertise and professionalism, therefore, comes to a call if the healthcare organizations and industry are to continue existing, without which, the goals and objectives of healthcare organizations will cease to exist. Burke, Antoniou & Cooper (2015) brings the point more clearly by arguing that the aging workforce has resulted, and continues to cause a reduction in the quality of healthcare provided by most healthcare organizations. Consequently, a significant number of healthcare workers falling under this category opt for retirement due to their natural advancement in age in addition to internal and governmental policies governing retirement in the healthcare industry. The resulting gap from leaving the workforce by this category of professionals and workers introduces worrisome trends for key players in the health sector as they face numerous challenges in filling the gap created. The correlation between age, length of time taken in service and expertise clearly comes into play as the exodus of experienced professionals leave the players in the healthcare sector with no option but to embark on exhaustive search for new entrants who may be in possession of required level of skills and expertise, a quest that mostly ends up in futility as most of the new entrants lack the necessary level of experience due to limited length of time in the service.
While cases of new entrants into the healthcare realm have been realized in some cases, positive impact on the profession from their expertise and skills has been minimal. The are many reasons for this discrepancy. Studies conducted on the behavior pattern of the aging workforce indicate that healthcare professionals falling under this category are more likely to be loyal to the healthcare organizations they work for compared to the new entrants in the service even in the cases when the quality of their services has dwindled or outright not commensurate with the changing nature of the profession. It is the argument of such studies that the aging workforce sees no need to offer their services to other healthcare organizations apart from the ones they currently work for reasons that are many folds. One of the reasons is that the aging healthcare professionals and workers feel more at home in their current work environment as they have already developed a sense of camaraderie with the rest of their colleagues (Cherry & Jacob, 2017). The difficulty of developing a new sense of camaraderie with a new workforce, therefore, makes it difficult for them to leave their current works station for a new one. What is implication then? Healthcare organizations just as other employment organizations prefer fresh blood in their workforce due to the assumption that employees who are still in their young age phases are more likely to be productive in the course of their professional endeavors even in the cases when they are not. The continued retention of aging healthcare workers based on their sense of loyalty and dedication to their organizations, however, makes it difficult for the injection of this new blood of professionals for reasons of management and remuneration.
Healthcare organizations in most instances rely on the provision of benefits to their employees as a form of retaining the services rendered in addition to safeguarding loyalty to the organization from the employees. Such stipends and benefits are in most circumstances pegged on the number of years worked by an employee, and in numerous occasions leveled to escalate with the increase in the number of years served by the employee in service to the organization. A new entrant into the service of the organization therefore expects to benefit less from such stipends and benefits, but expects more returns as he or she continues to offer services for the organization, a matter that takes time in terms of years. It is, therefore, logical that there is a level of difficulty for an aging healthcare professional or worker to leave the present organization in favor of a new one as this will translate into a loss of the benefits provided by the present organization, or finding such benefits absent in the other organization, or finding them to be comparatively less or minimal in case they are found. The dilemma of doubting what is to be found on the other side of the fence makes it difficult for aging employees to leave their current employment, and instead offer loyalty and dedication to it even when the healthcare organizations feel that they need to give room for new entrants based on the availability of vacancies.
New entrants into health care organizations, on the other hand, have been known to portray doubtable levels of loyalty and dedication to their new organizations. Unlike their mature counterparts in the profession who are dedicated to their work due to the advancement of age and a feeling of comfort and identification to the healthcare organizations they have dedicated much of their years to, the new entrants have no such sense or feelings even in the cases where their skills are in much demand or otherwise. By virtue of having worked for a health organization for a limited span of time and the demands that come from the phase of growth and development that they are going through, this category of employees find it difficult to attach themselves to the organization, leave alone developing the much-needed attachment and dedication to it. It is in the mindset of the new entrants that much and comparatively better opportunities await them in the near future, making them store the attachment, dedication and loyalty to such future endeavors than the present ones (Walshe & Smith, 2011). The new entrant is additionally dictated by the physiological and psychological demands that come from the phase of growth and development to explore and make the best of life before old age approaches, as opposed to settling down and identifying the self with the current healthcare organization he or she works for. It is this kind of complexity that most healthcare organizations face as they left between a rock and a hard place. As such, the top-tier of health organizations face the choice of either depending on the services of new entrants in cases of high quality skills despite the prevalence of doubtable dedication and loyalty, or that of the aging workforce who are dedicated and loyal to their work even in the cases where their skills have withered due to the changing landscape of healthcare provision in addition to new complexities in diseases and ailments.
Technology
The advent of technology in health care has introduced a new paradigm shift in the manner through which health care is provided in the contemporary scenario. It is in the public domain that technology currently forms the most important core of healthcare provision. Whether there is any aspect that does not rely on technology in one way or the other in the current health care settings remains debatable. Despite the gap in the debate, a vast majority of healthcare professionals, workers and other players in the health care sector converge in their opinions that there is hardly any aspect of health care provision that does not rely on a form of technology. The correlation between reliance on technology in healthcare and the aging health care workforce requires a deeper attention to the history of health care. Studies conducted to determine the level of knowledge among healthcare workers and professionals regarding technology and its application in health care reveal that quite a large number of healthcare workforce occupying the aging group category, have no worthwhile knowledge on technology and technological devices. It is a worrisome development that this kind of reality exists more so in the current generation when technology is part and parcel of health care. It would be unreasonable if not unfair to blame the aging healthcare workforce for their limited or lack of technological knowledge since technology as it is, is a new development that surfaced largely after the completion of healthcare training among this category of the healthcare workforce.
Kabene (2010) argues that training and education in health care during the previous generation, of which the aging healthcare workers form part of, was mostly centered on the typical provision of knowledge and skills according to the conditions and circumstances that prevailed during that time. Technology was not as dominant as it is in the present generation, and in the case where it existed, it was still in its formative stages and mostly used for military purposes (Sarnikar, Bennett & Gaynor, 2013). The advent of technology, therefore, came as a surprise to the aging healthcare workers and professionals as many of them could not have a significant comprehension of how it works and the complexities surrounding its nature and application. The difficulties presented by technology to the aging health care workforce continues to escalate even in the instances when part of the workforce has been taken through crash courses so as to equip themselves with relevant technological knowledge regarding their skills and profession. The former has been largely due to the rapidly changing nature of technology, thereby rendering the skills already acquired to be irrelevant and redundant. Healthcare organizations are therefore faced with the constant challenges to ensure that the aging population become skilled with technological skills necessary for making their expertise and knowledge in tandem with technological changes without which their work becomes difficult or outright inapplicable in tackling health issues that need the intervention of technology for fruition and success (Watfa, 2012).
It is worth remembering that the health care workforce that is still in their younger years do not face such kinds of challenges. The curriculum for educating this new generation of healthcare workforce has involved technology as part of the education system after realizing the challenges faced by the aging health professionals and workers. Indeed, quite a large number of new generation healthcare workforce come out of training fully knowledgeable in matters related to technology, thus making their work and skills more competent and reliable due to the reduction of complexities in certain kinds of health care situations that cannot solely rely on the skills and experiences gained in the classroom settings in the absence of aid and assistance from technology.
Financial resources
Closely related to the complications mentioned above, health care organizations mostly face the challenge of finance in dealing with their aging workforce. As stated earlier, there is a blanket potential of the aging workforce leaving their service for purposes of retirement as their ages continue to advance. This in effect means that the healthcare organizations faced by such challenges face the option of either looking for a replacement so as to ensure the continuity of their operations or resort to other ways to make sure that the gap likely to be created is temporarily filled to avoid mishaps in the provision of healthcare. One of such ways is that the organizations are forced to incorporate the services of private health professionals in the case of public health care organizations or resort to the inclusion of consultancy services for the upkeep of their operations in the case of private healthcare organizations (McLean, 2003).
In both instances, the incorporation of consultancy services or private health professionals in the case of public healthcare organizations means that such organizations have to dig deeper into their financial pool to ensure the continuity of service provision, in the absence of which the operations come crumbling down. Moreover, the aging workforce is likely to leave a significant gap in the healthcare sector upon retirement. This in essence means that a large sum of financial packages is going to be involved in providing the sendoff that in most cases is guaranteed due to governmental policies designed to take care of workers’ interests. The need to keep this aging workforce in tandem with technological matters and the changes associated with it as mentioned earlier has its financial correlation. From this perspective, it is sufficing to say that the financial resources of most healthcare organizations are exhausted in ensuring that the aging workforce gets the skills and knowledge in technological matters that they did not attain while going through the education and training process. Even in the cases where the aging workforce has attained such skills, additional funds are required to ensure continuity in shaping and smoothening the already acquired technological skills and knowledge, not to mention taking them through new educational programs so as to keep pace with the evolving technological environment.
It is needless to say that such educational and training endeavors badly impact on the meager resources of the healthcare organizations that find themselves in such kinds of situations. Moreover, as is naturally expected in most organizations, the new entrants likely to fill the gap created by the aging workforce upon the completion of their service will have to be taken through an indoctrination process so as to learn how their new organizations of employment operate, the rules governing their new employment and the general undertakings governing their new employment. Such kinds of indoctrination processes involve financial resources that vary depending on the new entrants and the health care organization in question. In some cases, the financial amount involved might be comparatively much higher as some of the new entrants meet situations and devices that they did not get familiar with in the course of their training and education. Keeping them in touch with such conditions and equipment requires the intervention of financial resources which might be meager in the case of some healthcare organizations such as the private ones (Berger, 2008). In the case of public healthcare organizations, the finances might be available from the collection of taxes. This however does not translate to their immediate availability as there are red tape and bureaucracy that usually surround the dispatch of such funds even in the cases where they are available for dispensation.
In conclusion, the aging workforce is a waiting time bomb most likely to introduce a new paradigm shift in the entire healthcare arena. A huge gap is going to be created by this category of workforce in the near future, and the resultant development is going to create a ripple effect in the healthcare sector
References
Berger, S. (2008). Fundamentals of health care financial management: A practical guide to fiscal issues and activities . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Burke, R. J., Antoniou, A.-S. G., & Cooper, C. L. (2015). The Multi-generational and aging workforce: Challenges and opportunities .
Cherry, B., & Jacob, S. R. (2017). Contemporary nursing: Issues, trends, & management .
Kabene, S. M. (2010). Healthcare and the effect of technology: Developments, challenges and advancements . Hershey, PA: Medical Information Science Reference.
McLean, R. A. (2003). Financial management in health care organizations . Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Learning.
Sarnikar, S., Bennett, D., & Gaynor, M. (2013). Cases on healthcare information technology for patient care management . Hershey, PA: Medical Information Science Reference.
Taylor, P. (2013). Older workers in an ageing society: Critical topics in research and policy .
Walshe, K., & Smith, J. (2011). Healthcare management . Maidenhead, Berkshire, England: McGraw Hill/Open University Press.
Watfa, M. (2012). E-healthcare systems and wireless communications: Current and future challenges . Hershey, PA: Medical Information Science Reference.
