The UK National Health Service (NHS) is going to be cutting about 15,000 to 20,000 healthcare jobs this year in an attempt to reduce the deficit of £1bn. Government officials are, of course, saying that patient care will not be compromised. But, most healthcare workers like Dr. Greg Hopkinson disagrees.

If we cut staff, that can only mean more bed closures, longer delays for care and, in the end, that does mean people dying on the waiting lists. There is no point beating about the bush, people are going to suffer.

Along with staff cuts, outsourcing is being considered for healthcare employees such as medical secretaries who are considered the “backbone of the NHS” and are a part of patient care from scheduling to making patients feel welcome.

Dr. Hopkinson:

When the secretaries go, everything falls apart. There’s talk of using some firm in India to write the letters and fix appointments. My goodness, don’t they know what these women do? Some of them come in on a Sunday to get our letters sorted. But the people making the cuts never take account of all that goodwill that props up the service. Well, the goodwill is disappearing fast and one day, when it’s gone, I suppose we’ll look back and wonder how it happened.

What’s happening all over everywhere is that people are no longer considered as important as numbers. In any industry, including healthcare, efficiency and profits reign supreme. Whether it be healthcare worker or patient, the primary consideration is saving costs because there’s never enough money, but always more than enough people.

Maybe there are even too many people. Overpopulation and all that. Another argument in support of cutting healthcare spending - protecting the environment and the earth by reducing the number of people around to waste resources.

/end sarcasm

The Observer, March 26, 2006

Technorati Tags: healthcare, health+care, jobs, nhs, uk, national+health+service

My interest in healthcare runs deep. In addition to healthcare.wurk.net, I also write Genetics and Health. It is up for two 2005 Medical Weblog Awards.

• Best New Medical Weblog (established in 2005)
• Best Medical Technologies/Informatics Weblog

If you have a few minutes to spare, please please please please please click on the links above and vote for Genetics and Health (it’s actually listed as “The Genetics and Health Blog”).

After voting, you may be interested in checking out the other medical weblogs which will give you an idea of the wide variety of work opportunities in healthcare. Reading these blogs will give you insider’s knowledge of what really goes on in medicine and health and make you more knowledgeable too.

Technorati Tags: medicine, medical+blog+awards, health, genetics, healthcare, health+care

The Boston Business Journal’s 2005 list of local innovations included a couple healthcare-related ones.

• High-tech health care - Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative

  The nonprofit’s new leader, Micky Tripathi, explained that the goal of the project was to use software and other information technology innovations to find a way to create a functional system that could be replicated everywhere.

• Hospital care with a smile

  In a bid to attract and keep patients, improve care and boost revenue, Massachusetts hospitals are increasingly turning to what had been a novel concept for health care: customer service.

  Many continue to add diagnostic and surgical services, new equipment and better operating room space. But others see private rooms and better lighting as the way to greater success. Some, in turn think oven-broiled salmon filets and grilled chicken will be the answer.

What do you think was a key healthcare innovation in 2005?

Technorati Tags: healthcare, health care, 2006, careers, jobs

Anna Estaroth of The Scotsman published her 2006 horoscopes today. For healthcare workers under the sign of Aquarius, she has this to say about your career:

Those working in healthcare are also greatly enabled by technological advances.

Sorry, no other specific mention of healthcare for the other horoscope signs. I’m Leo. What about you?

Technorati Tags: healthcare, health care, horoscopes, 2006, aquarius

Acer India has launched the tablet PC TravelMate C202, which they suggest suits the needs of the healthcare industry.

The TravelMate C202 tablet PC features:

• Biometric fingerprint security
• Embedded security subsystem to enable secure personal computing
• A patented sliding-track mechanism for convertible notebook functionality, that converts between notebook and slate modes.
• The sliding track permits one-motion convertibility between slate mode and notebook/keyboard with 125-degree display angle, facilitating easier sharing of onscreen information and its capture.

Announcing the launch, S Rajendran, GM-Sales and Marketing, Consumer Products Group, Acer India said:

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Medical doctors (MD’s) may be at the top of the food chain in the healthcare industry, but the training needed to become a physician and/or certain parts of the job itself are unappealing to some who’d still like to have direct patient contact. Some of the reasons for the purported shortage of MD’s are:

• Faulty forecasts that impacted residency programs paid by the federal government
• Decreases in applications to medical schools
• A moratorium on building new medical schools
• The impact of growing numbers of aging baby boomers who will continue to require increased medical care in their old age.

Naturopathic physicians may be able to fill some of the void and be a viable healthcare career option.

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Like any industry, healthcare needs to have some people in charge. Physician executives, especially those that hold a Master of Medical Management (MMM) degree, have seen a steady increase in their salaries.

Average salaries for physician executives:

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In case you’re in any doubt that healthcare is a burgeoning industry, the Community College of Rhode Island has just been granted 1.8 million federal dollars to recruit, train, and retain healthcare workers. Rhode Island predicts that one quarter of new jobs in the state through 2012 will be in healthcare.

“In Rhode Island, the demand for registered nurses and other health care professionals is expected to grow faster than supply through at least 2020,” wrote Senator Jack Reed in a letter to the Secretary of Labor.

The money will be put to use in the following ways:

• Recruit and retain students.
• Provide professional development for nursing and allied health faculty.
• Expand the pool of clinical sites and clinical faculty.
• Offer comprehensive academic and student support services specifically for nursing and other health sciences students.

Rhode Island isn’t the only place in the world to experience a shortfall in healthcare professionals. Anyone, anyplace pays attention to health.

Ads in newspapers are just one of the ways organizations recruit people (and the approach isn’t a very successful one for the job applicant in my experience). Personal contacts are probably the best way to get an “in” but I think targeted job listings to alumni, career centers, and subscribers to specialty newsletters also yield a higher success rate.

As an alumna of Stanford University and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, I am probably privy to some information on healthcare jobs that you are not. And even if the information is publicly available, it’s hard to sift through everything in your limited time. One of my goals, therefore, is to scan through some of the opportunities in the healthcare industry and highlight those that I think are interesting.

Today’s healthcare job listing is at Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America.
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