Medical professionals include doctors, nurses, hospice workers, emergency medical technicians, and other trained caregivers. RAND research has analyzed retention and job satisfaction among medical professionals, examined civilian and military health care education and training, and explored the impact of the many policies that affect physicians' and nurses' duties and performance.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Vaccine-preventable diseases take a heavy toll on U.S. adults despite the widespread availability of vaccines. Office-based providers can do more to promote adult vaccinations but need clearer guidance and a better business case to offer them.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The substantial expansion in the RN workforce between 2005 and 2010 is largely a temporary bubble that is likely to burst between 2010 and 2015 as the unemployment rate falls.
RESEARCH BRIEF
The use of dedicated anesthesia providers for routine gastroenterology (GI) procedures is seen as medically justifiable only for high-risk patients. Eliminating these services for low-risk patients could generate $1.1 billion in savings per year.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The use of dedicated anesthesia providers for routine gastroenterology (GI) procedures is seen as medically justifiable only for high-risk patients. Eliminating these services for low-risk patients could generate $1.1 billion in savings per year.
NEWS RELEASE
Use of anesthesia providers to monitor sedation during screening colonoscopies and other outpatient gastroenterology procedures more than doubled from 2003 to 2009 in the United States, with most of the increase among low-risk patients who may not need this service.
REPORT
California has taken steps to implement components of a comprehensive professional development system for its early child education workforce. However, further advances are needed and more information is required to identify possible inefficiencies in the current system.
REPORT
Uses two sources of representative data, the 2005 National Household Education Survey and the 2007 RAND California Preschool Study, to describe child care and early learning arrangements for the approximately 2.8 million California children ages 0 to 5 who are younger than the age at which they would enter kindergarten.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Offers recommendations for improving the education and training of California's early childhood workforce.
NEWS RELEASE
Promoting immunizations as a part of routine office-based medical practice is needed to improve adult vaccination rates, a highly effective way to curb the spread of diseases across communities, prevent needless illness and deaths, and lower health care costs.
REPORT
Promoting immunizations as a part of routine office-based medical practice is needed to improve adult vaccination rates, a highly effective way to curb the spread of diseases across communities, prevent needless illness and deaths, and lower health care costs.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
With or without electronic charting options, nurses spend about 19% of their time completing documentation, compared with all other categories of care.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The nurse practitioner (NP) workforce in the United States is expected to grow dramatically by 2025, easing concerns about a potential looming nursing shortage and suggesting that NPs will fill a substantial amount of future need for care.
PROJECT
A new online tool, called the "Unintended Consequences Guide," is available from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to help hospitals and other health care organizations anticipate, avoid, and address problems that can occur when adopting and using electronic health records.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Since Massachusetts enacted health reform legislation in 2006, health care employment in the state has grown more rapidly than in the rest of the United States, primarily in administrative positions.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The number of people aged 23 to 26—primarily women—who became registered nurses increased by 62 percent from 2002 to 2009, approaching numbers not seen since the mid-1980s. This trend should ease some of the concern about a looming nursing shortage in the United States.
NEWS RELEASE
The number of people aged 23 to 26—primarily women—who became registered nurses increased by 62 percent from 2002 to 2009, approaching numbers not seen since the mid-1980s. This trend should ease some of the concern about a looming nursing shortage in the United States.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Physicians prescribe more broadly than commonly perceived. Though narrow prescribers are more likely to prescribe highly advertised drugs, few physicians prescribe these drugs exclusively. Narrow prescribing has modest effects on medication adherence and out-of-pocket costs in some classes.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The Building Interdisciplinary Geriatric Health Care Research Centers initiative created centers that brought together individuals from a wide range of disciplines and helped them collaborate to develop new projects or build on existing efforts.
RESEARCH BRIEF
The most comprehensive analysis of the risk of malpractice claims by physician specialty in more than two decades finds that U.S. physicians have a greater than 75% career-long risk of facing litigation. In some specialties, doctors can be virtually certain of a lawsuit over the course of their careers. However, the vast majority of those claims will not result in payment to a plaintiff.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Analysis of the Massachusetts Health Care Reform Plan suggests national health care reform may require larger numbers of support personnel, rather than requiring greater numbers of physicians and nurses themselves.
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