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October 4, 2010

Growth spurts | Jobs in health care expected to continue driving Maine's economy

By Carol Coultas

According to a study released this spring by the Maine Department of Labor, employment in the state’s health care industry has increased every year since 1992, and between 2000 and 2008, generated more jobs than the next 10 job categories combined.

If how we receive and pay for health care doesn’t change radically, analysts within the state’s Center for Workforce Research and Information expect health care will generate 50% of all new jobs from 2006 to 2016.

“In the last 15 years, the bulk of the job losses from other sectors have been made up in health care,” says John Dorrer, head of CWRI and one of the authors of the study, “Workforce Analysis of Maine’s Health Services Sector.” “It’s been one giant economic engine.”

Contributing to the trend is Maine’s aging population. People 65 and older typically require three to five times the number of physicians per population than children and babies. Dorrer predicts that as Mainers age, the overall demand for physicians will increase 22% — or nearly 850 docs — through 2030 if the current health care system remains unchanged. Currently, more than one-fifth of Maine’s physicians are 60 or older.

The need for other health care professionals and support staff will continue to rise, as well. The report identified existing shortages of psychiatrists and dentists, and to a lesser extent, surgeons, ob/gyns, pharmacists, RNs and physician assistants.

Maine has 24% more health care workers per capita than the national average, but the distribution of those caregivers is concentrated in major metropolitan areas. In Maine’s six most rural counties — Oxford, Franklin, Somerset, Piscataquis, Washington and Aroostook — residents have 21% fewer health care practitioners per capita than the rest of the state; 10% fewer support workers; and approximately 50% fewer doctors, dentists, lab techs and other practitioners.

The great unknown in all of this is the impact of health care reform and innovations such as electronic record sharing, which could affect health care costs.

“If we go down a path of more controlled health care costs, those patterns of hiring that we’ve seen hospitals and other health care sectors engaging in will slow down,” Dorrer says.

 

Carol Coultas

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