CALAIS – The number of qualified staff to meet the needs of the health care industry is shrinking, a consultant told officials of Calais Regional Hospital on Monday, and the problem could hit rural facilities the hardest.

Speaking at the hospital’s annual meeting Monday night, Scott Towle of Quorum Health Service described some of the problems hospitals face when they search for qualified employees. Towle said forecasts suggest there will be a shortage of medical providers ranging from physicians and nurses to speech, physical and occupational therapists, pharmacists and lab technicians in the future.

In Calais, a shortage of medical staff already is anticipated: The hospital is losing four physicians in the next few months.

Using a PowerPoint presentation, Towle detailed some of the problems hospitals are likely to face in the future.

On average, he said, 18 percent to 21 percent of hospital employees leave their jobs each year.

“So it is a significant issue,” he said. “It can be regional – some hospitals have very low turnover rates, and others have very high rates.”

But employee turnover costs a lot. “If you look at what it costs to recruit [nurses] and then have to hire agency nurses to cover during those periods, the turnover is a very expensive proposition for a hospital,” he said.

Another problem hospitals face is an aging nursing staff.

“In 1980, 42 percent of the registered nurses in the United States were less than 35 years old, while in 2020, it is projected that 46 percent will be over 50 years old. That means a big retirement of nurses and health care workers,” he said.

And the numbers for physicians are just as grim.

“A growing number of doctors are approaching retirement age,” he said. “So we talk about the difficulty of recruiting physicians.”

The problem is worse for rural areas because most doctors aren’t interested in practicing there.

“Only 10 percent of new grads want to practice in an area with less than 50,000 population,” he said. Most want to practice in larger urban areas.

When selecting an area, Towle said, doctors are looking at geographic location, lifestyle and a good financial package. “Most of them want to be in single specialty groups; they don’t want to be a sole practitioner. They want to be in a group, or a partnership, or a multispecialty group, or a hospital employee,” he said.

And the recruitment of physicians is brisk. “Seventy-nine percent receive 26 offers before they are out of school,” Towle added.

One solution to the shortage of employees is for hospitals to “work short,” Towle said. “[But] a decreased staff decreases your staff satisfaction. You could actually lose more people because they don’t really want to work that way for long periods of time,” he said.

Towle had some suggestions for making Calais an attractive place to work. He recommended that the hospital not wait until a position becomes vacant, but do some planning.

“Look for meaningful opportunities for part-time, occasional and not-quite-ready-to-retire workers. Try to see how you can fit those workers into your hospital work force,” he said.

Partner with others, he said, to make the community a great place to live “so you can draw people here,” he added.

And in order to attract doctors, Towle said, look at long-term goals for the hospital and then connect with the market. “Have some flexible options to get the physicians and then renew emphasis on retention on the medical staff as well,” he said.

The Tennessee-based Quorum Health Service, according to its Web site, is the 12th-largest health care management-consulting firm in the country. It delivers operational, financial and strategic recommendations and implementation to hospitals nationwide. It provides guidance for operations and financial performance for nearly 200 independent hospital clients, among them Calais Regional Hospital.

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