One might think that when there are 7,100 job openings for physicians and nurses at Iowa Workforce Development, it's time to take a serious look at the shortages in our healthcare workforce. Maybe even look ahead and see what's coming? You know, make projections?
As incredible as it sounds, Iowa's lawmakers, leadership and healthcare stakeholders have never seen it that way. It is true, there have never been any Iowa-based, comprehensive projections of Iowa's key healthcare workers. Which may explain why lawmakers and bureaucrats continue to make policies that don't begin to scratch the surface of mitigating current shortages in the physician supply. As for our registered nurses and direct care workers, they have not even pretended to address that life-limiting understaffing.
I couldn't take it anymore. So I made my own projections.