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Y. Rotem Galili1, N. Rotem2
1Ministry of Health, Physiotherapy Department, Jerusalem, Israel, 2Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Physiotherapy, Tel-Aviv, Israel
Background: Workforce gaps in health professions (=HP) including physiotherapy (=PT), in the Israeli public health sector has repeatedly gained attention over the last few years.
Lack of qualified PTs is thought to be the cause for long waiting times in several areas and leading to an inability to meet national time targets. A difficulty in recruiting physiotherapists has been reported, including to places traditionally thought after by new graduates.
As the problem seems to exacerbate it received growing attention and the governance unit in the prime minister’s office was handed the responsibility to produce a comprehensive report on the topic.
Lack of qualified PTs is thought to be the cause for long waiting times in several areas and leading to an inability to meet national time targets. A difficulty in recruiting physiotherapists has been reported, including to places traditionally thought after by new graduates.
As the problem seems to exacerbate it received growing attention and the governance unit in the prime minister’s office was handed the responsibility to produce a comprehensive report on the topic.
Purpose: The report had three main goals:
- Analysis of workforce gaps in three HPs (Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy) using an established supply and demand model data, to forecast the workforce needs for the years 2020-2035.
- To offer recommendations to deal with the gaps according to the model and additional data.
- To produce a government tool for planning and optimizing personnel in the HPs, which will be used by the various government offices.
Methods:
- Data collection and analysis of workforce in the health professions from all relevant organizations (health, social, education government ministries, 4 HMOs, social security, central bureau of statistics).
- In depth Interviews of stakeholders and on field observations by visiting diverse health providers and settings.
- Conducting a survey among health professionals (physiotherapy, occupational and speech therapy).
- Analyzing the findings and building a model based on the data received from the various sources.
- Forming a set of recommendations for possible solutions for the immediate, middle and long terms.
- Where data was lacking - assumptions and estimates were used in different parts of the model to create an optimal workforce forecast.
Results: The projections for full-time jobs needed projected to grow from 8615 in the year of 2020 to 127724 in the year of 2035 while the number of PTs is projected to grow from 6671 to 11045 in those years. Based on these projections, approximately 1700 PTs will be required to fill the gap by the year 2035.
Conclusions: There is a wide and projected gap between physiotherapy workforce need and availability. The gap in workforce demands a swift and significant intervention.
Implications: There is a need for a multi-year plan to deal with physiotherapy workforce shortages in the health system. In February 2022, a Government decision was made to deal with personnel gaps in the health professions. The decision included adoption of the report, implementation plan which includes enlarging entry level students, various steps to increase the attraction to work in the public sector, and increasing efficiency.
Funding acknowledgements: Report was done by the Israeli government
Keywords:
Workforce
Workforce
Topics:
Globalisation: health systems, policies & strategies
Professional issues
Globalisation: health systems, policies & strategies
Professional issues
Did this work require ethics approval? No
Reason: Report was done by the Israeli government.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
