What if you employ professional caregivers?

If you employ professional caregivers, whether you are a C-level executive or front-line supervisor, you know that your organization’s mission, reputation and bottom-line are tied to the effective functioning of professional caregivers on your staff. You also know that financial pressures, regulatory demands, staffing shortages and turnover affect staff performance, contributing to workplace stress, costly medical complications and losses in productivity. To be the best, you need your staff to be their best. Creating a healthy workplace and helping professional caregivers manage their stress can make the difference between organizational excellence and mediocrity, or worse.

Currently, over 14 million Americans work in healthcare: nearly 3 million are registered nurses and almost the same numbers are paraprofessionals.1 By 2018 the healthcare workforce is expected to grow 22.5%, generating 3.2 million new jobs, more than in any other industry,2 with direct-care workers overcoming registered nurses as the largest occupational group.3 The graying of the Baby Boomers and explosion of health-related technology will certainly increase demand for the help and healing that professionals provide. But the aging of the workforce threatens access to care and makes the health, recruitment and retention of professional caregivers a critical issue.

Endnotes

1Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition, Home Health Aides and Personal and Home Care Aides, on the Internet at www.bls.gov/oco/ocos326.htm (Visited March 29, 2010)

2 Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Career Guide to Industries, 2010-11 Edition, Healthcare, on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs035.htm (Visited March 25, 2010)

3 Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute, PHI Facts No. 3, February 2010 Update, on the Internet at www.PHInational.org (Visited April 26, 2010)