The US Health Provider Workforce: Determinants and Potential Paths to Enhancement

The health provider workforce is shaped by factors collectively influencing the education, training, licensing, and certification of physicians and allied health professionals, through professional organizations with interlocking and often opaque governance relationships within a state-based licensing system. This system produces a workforce is that is insufficiently responsive to current needs and opportunities, including those created by new technologies. This lack of responsiveness reflects the complex, nontransparent, and cautious nature of the controlling organizations, influenced by the economic interests of the organized professions, which seek protection from competitors both local and international. The first step in addressing this is to comprehensively examine the organizational complexity and conflicted interests within this critical ecosystem. Doing so suggests areas ripe for change, to enhance the health workforce and benefit public health.