More than half of health care workers plan to look for a new job in the next year, survey shows

A recent survey finds more than half of health care workers nationwide say they plan to look for a new job in the next year, either within their organization or outside of it. The Harris Poll also finds less than a third feel very valued by their employer, or loyal to them.

This comes as Arizona continues to struggle with a shortage of health care providers. The health care system itself is also dealing with changes, from Medicaid eligibility to rising insurance premiums to the role of technology like artificial intelligence.

Laura Mercer, an OBGYN in Phoenix and a member of the Arizona Medical Association’s Board of Directors joined The Show to talk about it.

Full conversation

MARK BRODIE: And Laura, when you read the survey, what stood out to you?

LAURA MERCER: Ooh, so there's a few things that stood out to me. I think one of the things that's perhaps the most striking is that there's a majority of respondents that have plans to do something different in the near future, not necessarily leaving medicine or leaving health care, I think it's important to note that the study didn't just look at doctors, didn't just look at nurses.

BRODIE: Yeah.

MERCER: It was really a sort of cross-sectional nationwide study looking at people who interact with patients in the health care space. And over half of them want to do something different. Some of them within their organizations, some of them outside of their organizations.

And to me, that means there's a lot of people that are not totally satisfied, not very content. with where they are and we might see some redistribution of folks. Maybe they don't leave health care altogether, hopefully they don't, but there could be some shifting around and that could lead to some gaps as we look ahead.

BRODIE: Does this kind of mesh with what you see in your day-to-day work?

MERCER: Yeah, this study is not really a surprise to most of us in the health care community. It's something that we have been watching and a little bit worried about for more than a decade, maybe a couple of decades.

Health care worker shortages are an ongoing threat, particularly in Arizona and other places where there are a lot of rural areas, rural communities. And we just don't have enough doctors, nurses, physical therapists, pharmacists, dentists, you know, you name it, and we could use a few more of those here in Arizona.

BRODIE: Yeah, I wanted to ask you specifically about Arizona, because we've had well-documented provider shortages for a while, and you're talking about maybe a redistribution. That sounds potentially kind of scary.

MERCER: You know, it does. Also, I think it's important to keep in mind that this was a study that was nationwide.

BRODIE: Yeah.

MERCER: And it could, who knows, be for the better. Maybe everybody says, you know, we've had enough of those hurricanes and we're all gonna move out west and we all of a sudden find ourselves very fortunate that we've recruited a lot of folks.

I don't think we should hold our breath on that. I think it's a little bit more likely that we see redistribution movement from folks in all kinds of spaces and in all kinds of locations.

BRODIE: How much do you think burnout is playing into this?

MERCER: I think burnout plays a huge role. And that was one of the findings that they published in this study, is looking at overall that job satisfaction, what are the factors leading to people wanting to look for a different opportunity. And some of the obvious things popped up, salary, benefits. But there have been previous studies that have looked at how fulfilled somebody looks or feels in their job.

And if they feel fulfilled, they're willing to tolerate lower salaries, or a little bit less autonomy in their schedules, or having to work always every Thanksgiving. I think there are a number of factors contributing to health care worker burnout. But certainly it's been a lot harder over the last several years. The COVID-19 pandemic really highlighted it and in a lot of ways brought it to the forefront and made it something that we could talk about and really helped de-stigmatize some of the mental health challenges that a lot of health care workers face.

But overall, as we look at the current landscape in the United States and a lot of the distrust and misinformation that we hear about vaccines, about reproductive health care, about Tylenol, I think it's not hard to imagine why there are a lot of health care workers that are questioning, like, is this really worth it? Is this really what I want to be doing day in and day out?

BRODIE: Yeah, it's so interesting, you mentioned the pandemic and it seems like we saw sort of a microcosm of all this. that at the very beginning, people were getting up on their balconies at shift change and applauding nurses and applauding providers. And then it seemingly very quickly, we were really questioning as a society, like, Are you telling me all the information? Why can't I just trust Dr. Google? Why do I have to even go see a provider? I can just do it myself.

It seems like within a very short amount of time, the public sentiment, at least in some quarters, kind of changed. And I wondered How much, like, was that kind of a turning point in terms of providers not feeling fulfilled and providers maybe feeling more burned out than they had prior to, say, spring of 2020?

MERCER: I have no data to point to to validate that, but anecdotally, what you said feels very real.

BRODIE: As a provider, what would you like to see from the employers to try to keep you and your colleagues doing what you're doing? Or at the very least, as you alluded to earlier, if, you know, if colleagues want to maybe do something different, still keep them in health care and not have them leave the field altogether. What would you like to see?

MERCER: That is such a great question. And I think that the answer is complicated. I don't think there's any one solution that would apply to every health care provider. And I think overall, as we think about health care shortages, right, that gets even more complicated. One thing that I do know is that having shortages of permanent staff leads to the need to hire temporary, or we sometimes call them traveler or locum staff, at much higher rates. Along the same lines, just like any other sector of the business community, recruitment costs are high. And so if you're paying a premium for a temporary person while simultaneously needing to recruit and then train new people, it kind of doesn't make sense.

The calculus isn't there. So it seems to me that there could be opportunities for health care systems or other employers in the health care space to utilize those funds differently. One of the things the survey pointed to were educational opportunities or opportunities for growth. I mean, I think there's some real opportunities for health care systems to really look at, you know, how could we be engaging these really bright people? People who go to nursing school and medical school and pharmacy, like these are smart folks. How can we let those experts figure out how to best use tools like AI and probably a hundred other things that we could sit here and brainstorm and think about? to really improve their workspace so that healthcare workers can really focus on their patients instead of all of the other bureaucracy.

BRODIE: Well, so when you look at sort of the health care environment in the Phoenix area, let's say three years, five years out, given what you see on a daily basis, given what you saw in this study, what do you think it looks like?

MERCER: Well, sadly, I think as we look Three, five, 10 years out, we're going to see more and more health care worker shortages in Arizona. I'm an OB-GYN, as I mentioned. And so, you know, I have a small bias towards women's and reproductive health care. And as I think about the maternity deserts that we have in Arizona, most places in our state have to travel more than an hour to access a hospital or birthing center that has labor and delivery birthing capabilities.

I think as we look ahead, we know that we're projected to have healthcare worker shortages, something like 4,000 physicians and like 4,500 nurses by the year 2032. That's not that far. That's less than a decade from now. And those are big numbers. And it'll be hard to replace, you know, to fill that gap.

BRODIE: Hard to make that up.

MERCER: Hard to make that up.

BRODIE: All right, that is Dr. Laura Mercer, a practicing OB-GYN here in the Valley, also a member of the Arizona Medical Association's Board of Directors. Thank you so much for the conversation. I appreciate it.

MERCER: Thanks for having me.