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Nation's emergency healthcare system faces critical workforce shortages

Healthcare Strategist Trend Watch, August 4, 2006

Emergency care systems in the U.S. are at serious risk of critical shortages in staffing because of worsening shortages of registered nurses, uneven distribution of board-certified emergency medicine physicians between urban and rural areas, and challenges retaining emergency medical technicians, according to a new study by the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University at Albany's School of Public Health. The report is a study of the national emergency care workforce nationwide, including pre-hospital emergency services, emergency departments in hospitals, freestanding urgent care centers, and teams dispatched by local, state, or federal governments or volunteer organizations such as the Red Cross in response to widespread emergency or disaster.

"The emergency care workforce in the United States will face a number of challenges in the coming years, problems that will be exacerbated by the retirement of baby boomers," Jean Moore, director of CHWS and lead author of the study said in a statement. "These are issues we must be prepared to address now, before we are confronted by a pandemic or another health crisis that strains our current system beyond the breaking point."

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