Workforce

The Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute (PHI), a national nonprofit working to improve America's long-term care system, has launched the PHI State Data Center, the first web-based tool to provide comprehensive, state-by-state profiles of the direct-care workforce.

The U.S. healthcare sector continues to grow jobs in 2011 as the national economic situation remains dicey. The industry added 43,800 positions in September.

Struggling pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced plans to lay off 400 employees at its main office in Wilmington, Delaware.

Despite the positive jobs outlook in the healthcare industry and the demand for physicians due to a physician shortage, some new doctors are uneasy with their choice of profession.

With the decline of traditional pensions, many hospitals and health systems have turned to 401(k)s and other defined-contribution plans in which workers save and invest through an employer-sponsored retirement vehicle. Healthcare organizations usually empower investment committees with oversight of their defined benefit plans, but committee members often have inconsistent levels of investment experience. Thus, they need all the advice they can get, especially in the current economy.

The Massachusetts Medical Society released its 2011 Physician Workforce Study this week, showing statewide critical and severe physician shortages in eight specialties.

Pediatric hospitalists saw a 7.2 percent increase in median compensation rising from $160,038 in 2009 to $171,617 in 2010, though their compensation still significantly trailed adult medicine hospitalists whose median compensation was $220,619.

The California Hospital Association is accusing the labor union representing nurses at a hospital where a patient died last weekend during a strike of exploiting the tragedy to further its own agenda.

With physicians wanting work-life balance, job security, good salary and a thriving area in which to live, it is difficult to draw primary care providers to rural areas.