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The health care sector has traditionally been an economic mainstay, providing stability and even growth during times of recession. Health care added an average of nearly 20 thousand jobs per month over the last decade. The goods and services hospitals purchase from other businesses create additional economic value for the community. With these “ripple effects” included, each hospital job supports about two more jobs and every dollar spent by a hospital supports roughly $2.30 of additional business activity.

The U.S. health care system faces growing challenges—the U.S. population is aging at a rapid rate; health care reform is expected to bring millions more patients into the system; and there are anticipated shortages in numbers of trained health care professionals to care for these patients. Therefore, the need to start now to develop more effective and efficient workforce planning models (WPMs) for health care organizations is critical.

It is important to work together to design more value-driven, primary, health and wellness-based services. We need to begin today to evaluate and redesign our primary care models and approaches.

Results of AHA Rapid Response Survey, August-September 2009

Chartpack: Teaching hospitals train future health care professionals, conduct medical research and fulfill a distinct and vital role in delivering patient care.

Chartpack for the TrendWatch ")Impact of the Economic Downturn on Hospitals")

TrendWatch charts: Administrative Costs and Spending in Hospitals

Hospitals play a critical role in the health of Americans, but few people are aware of the economic and community benefits hospitals provide.