Who Will Take Care of Us? Healthcare Industry Needs to Equip Outsiders to Fill Millions of Jobs

Study on Allied Health Workforce Retention reveals workers from other industries want professional training to consider or apply for healthcare jobs

TAMPA, Fla., Aug. 1, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new nationwide study commissioned by Ultimate Medical Academy, workers from other industries do not realize they have the experience and skills to apply for or even consider the 3.2 million healthcare jobs that are urgently needed by 2026. To help address this growing talent gap, The Study on Allied Health Workforce Retention surveyed 1,000 people ages 18-55, including prospective employees who might consider working in healthcare along with current employees in support positions and lapsed employees who used to work in healthcare.  

The Study set out to understand what it would take to fill open positions that are the backbone of the industry, supporting patient care and business operations.  It revealed:

• More than half of all prospective employees (52 percent) said their top reason for not considering or applying for healthcare in support roles is that they "don't think they have the appropriate job training or education."
  
  
• Of those surveyed, "not knowing exactly what I want to do in healthcare" is the #2 reason 34 percent of prospective healthcare workers say they haven't looked for a job in healthcare yet, and 22 percent of respondents put "it [healthcare] hadn't even occurred to me as a possibility" in their top 5 reasons deterring them from considering the industry.
  
  
• Prospective employees also do not appear to recognize that they may have transferable skills that would be valuable in the healthcare industry.  Of the prospective employees surveyed, 28 percent are working in the retail, restaurant/fast food or hospitality industries and an additional 14 percent are employed in professional/business services, yet less than half (45 percent) of these employees from industries that are heavily customer-service-oriented cite "customer service skills to help you work better with patients or the people you serve" as being valuable in a healthcare job. Additionally, only 43 percent of prospective employees think their "team building skills" could be valuable.   
  
  
• Prospective employees cited "on the job professional training to support new skills development" (61 percent) and "employer-paid educational opportunities related to the field" (61 percent) as the most impactful training reasons to apply for a job in the healthcare industry.
  
  
• And employers see opportunities to offer that training, and more, to employees new to healthcare.  When asked to rank the top workplace training opportunities that they thought would help them attract, hire and retain support employees, employers ranked "employer-paid educational opportunities related to the employee's field" as the most impactful training opportunity (62 percent), "training to help employees succeed at their job" as the second-most impactful (46 percent), and "on-the-job professional training to support new skills development" third (36 percent).  To create opportunities for career advancement and promotions for prospective employees in support roles, 72 percent of employers would want to offer customer service training.

"There are employees across the retail, hospitality and restaurant sectors and many others with the soft skills that healthcare needs who are ripe to work in healthcare jobs," says Tom Rametta, president of Ultimate Medical Academy (UMA).  "As a sector, and as individual employers, we need to be more deliberate in creating and especially communicating the opportunities we offer that would be welcomed by workers from other industries. The healthcare industry, offers many ways to prepare for a career, not just a job, with advancement opportunities as well as the chance to help others, job security and training to make it easier to translate their skills into our workplaces."

Overall, employers in this Study are actively looking to hire an average of 17 percent of their total current support role positions in their organizations.  When looking only at employers in larger organizations, the average number of openings is much higher:  26 percent of their support positions on average.  While 40 percent of employers admit retention of employees in support roles is difficult, 74 percent seem more focused on the challenges of the initial hiring.  

Leverage a Higher Sense of Purpose

Healthcare is known as a helping profession, and respondents across all three groups and all demographics surveyed indicated that "the ability to help others" is one of the top-two reasons for considering work in healthcare. Three quarters (75%) of prospective workers see it as a reason to consider a job in healthcare, which mirrors and even exceeds the 64 percent of current employees and 67 percent of lapsed employees who also say they initially sought a job in healthcare for that reason. Likewise, "a job that really makes me feel like I'm making a difference" is ranked highly as an important attribute for job satisfaction among all groups: current employees 83 percent, lapsed employees 87 percent and prospective employees 81 percent.

"The trend of plentiful jobs in healthcare support roles and not enough workers can have major implications on how employers address recruitment.  Those employers who tap into prospective employees' expressed motivation to help people will be most successful attracting employees from different sectors and demographics," said Rametta.  "We believe that well-targeted outreach programs and commitments of additional training to build new skills will be highly effective in attracting workers who have recently lost jobs in hard-hit industries and occupations, and especially those currently working in hourly wage jobs or those seeking more fulfilling full-time careers."  

About the Study on Allied Health Workforce Retention

The Study on Allied Health Workforce Retention commissioned by Ultimate Medical Academy was conducted by ACUPOLL® Precision Research, February 3-22, 2023, among healthcare employees in support roles to dissect the underlying causes of the healthcare staffing crisis and possible ways to address it. 

A survey was conducted via the internet among a total of 1,000 people ages 18-55 who currently work in healthcare, lapsed employees who used to work in healthcare (within the past five years), and prospective employees who might consider working in healthcare in clinical and non-clinical support roles, including medical billers and coders, accounting clerks, medical scribes, healthcare IT specialists, patient relations coordinators, patient care technicians, patient transporters, and lab assistants (referred to as Current, Lapsed and Prospective employees in healthcare, respectively). 

The margin of error in the employee survey results for the total population at a 95 percent confidence interval is +/- 3 percent.

A follow-up survey was conducted by ACUPOLL, March 23 - April 7, 2023, with 320 employers in the healthcare industry via the internet to understand the feasibility and potential of implementing changes based on employee feedback that would increase retention and employment in the healthcare industry.  These employers are in positions that are responsible for hiring, training and retaining more than 545,000 individual healthcare workers in support roles The Study intends to understand the feasibility and potential of implementing changes that would increase retention and employment in the healthcare industry.

Combined, these employer respondents are responsible for hiring and/or retaining more than 545,000 individual healthcare support workers.  The margin of error in survey results for the total population of employers at a 95 percent confidence interval is +/- 5 percent.

About Ultimate Medical Academy

Based in Tampa, Florida, Ultimate Medical Academy (UMA) is an accredited, nonprofit educational institution that equips and empowers more than 10,000 students nationwide to do vital work at the heart of healthcare. In addition to offering diploma and degree programs, UMA works closely with healthcare companies to connect students directly to job opportunities. UMA also provides certified continuing medical education (CME) through ongoing training and professional development opportunities to physicians, nurses and other medical professionals throughout the U.S. annually.

Operating for nearly 30 years, UMA has educated more than 80,000 alumni.  UMA offers hands-on learning at its main campus in Clearwater, Florida as well as content-rich, interactive programs through its online campus. The institution supports students through every step of their journey with access to academic support, interview and resume coaching, job search assistance, technical support and more.  Learn more by visiting www.ultimatemedical.edu.

Media Contact
Ivy Cohen
Ivy Cohen Corporate Communications
[email protected]
(212) 399-0026

SOURCE Ultimate Medical Academy (UMA)