Management in the News

Health care managers have to deal on the daily basis with many issues that in some cases can be very serious. Some of those issues are staffing, unionization, budgeting, promotions, recruitment, reorganization, and changes in the personnel mix. One of the biggest challenges for any organization is to have a solid team, and to create a solid team health care managers have to staff their organization with individuals that are competent, organized and also dedicated to their jobs. This seems to be an issue now days since the shortage of health care professionals keeps increasing.

According to Isgur (2008) “The health care industry is in the middle of a full-blown workforce crisis, the root of which is an inability to develop, attract and retain the workforce necessary for hospitals to meet current and projected staffing shortages.” Managers in health care settings have to deal with positions that would not get fill because there are not applicants interested in the positions or because the applicants are not qualified to take into those positions. PRWeb (2006) states that that the Employment Communications Metrics Online Report found that the vacancy rate for nurses is 10.1%, 20.8% for occupational therapists, and 10.3% for speech therapists.

The staffing issues are due in part because the educational institutions make it very hard for students to complete the courses required, and that way graduate, and in some cases schools don’t have the capacity to offer students the opportunity to enroll in health care career programs. PRWeb states that “…30,000 qualified candidates were turned away by four-year colleges because of a shortage of seats. Even larger numbers of qualified candidates were turned away by two-year nursing academic programs because of a shortage of instructors.”

The United States Department of Labor (n.d) states that as part of a plan to counter the health care labor shortages they came up with a series of investments, and solutions that will...