Abstract
Background
The increasing shortage of staff in healthcare facilities worldwide calls for a human resource planning strategy in order to ensure safe, timely and patient-centred care. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis and supply and demand projections of nurses, midwives, and radiographers within the labor market of the largest university hospital in the Baltic States by 2030.
Methods
The staff supply was calculated on the intake and outflow of persons in the labour market annually for various factors. Projections for the demand of nurses, midwives, and radiographers took into account the different needs of the population, categorized by gender and age, for the services offered within the institution.
Results
The projected supply of nurses in 2030 will be lower and the supply of midwives and radiographers higher than in 2021. Looking at the supply and demand scenarios for nurses, there is a gap that widens from 2021 onwards, with a projected shortage of 59 nurses in the medium-demand scenario and 331 nurses in the prospective scenario in 2025, and 173 and 772 nurses in 2030 respectively in the establishment. The need for radiographers in the prospective scenario, which is the most likely scenario, will increase, with a projected shortage of 26 radiographers in 2025 and 52 in 2030 at this university hospital. The impact of the variables influencing the increase in the demand for midwives did not exceed the projected supply of midwives in the institution.
Conclusions
Due to the rising demand for nurse and radiographer services from the aging population,, the predicted supply of nurses and radiographers will be insufficient. To ensure the projected demand for nurses in the medium and prospective scenarios, the nurses recruited each year should increase up to 38% in the medium scenario and 69% in the prospective scenario from 2022. In the prospective demand scenario, the recruitment of radiographers should increase three-fold and the recruitment of midwives should be reduced by 30%.