Attractiveness of employment sectors for physical therapists in Ontario, Canada (1999-2007): implication for the long term care sector

Abstract

BackgroundRecruiting and retaining health professions remains a high priority for health system planners. Different employment sectors may vary in their appeal to providers. We used the concepts of inflow and stickiness to assess the relative attractiveness of sectors for physical therapists (PTs) in Ontario, Canada. Inflow was defined as the percentage of PTs working in a sector who were not there the previous year. Stickiness was defined as the transition probability that a physical therapist will remain in a given employment sector year-to-year.MethodsA longitudinal dataset of registered PTs in Ontario (1999-2007) was created, and primary employment sector was categorized as ‘hospital’, ‘community’, ‘long term care’ (LTC) or ‘other.’ Inflow and stickiness values were then calculated for each sector, and trends were analyzed.ResultsThere were 5003 PTs in 1999, which grew to 6064 by 2007, representing a 21.2% absolute growth. Inflow grew across all sectors, but the LTC sector had the highest inflow of 32.0%. PTs practicing in hospitals had the highest stickiness, with 87.4% of those who worked in this sector remaining year-to-year. The community and other employment sectors had stickiness values of 78.2% and 86.8% respectively, while the LTC sector had the lowest stickiness of 73.4%.ConclusionAmong all employment sectors, LTC had highest inflow but lowest stickiness. Given expected increases in demand for services, understanding provider transitional probabilities and employment preferences may provide a useful policy and planning tool in developing a sustainable health human resource base across all employment sectors.

Human resources for health (and rehabilitation): Six Rehab-Workforce Challenges for the century

“…Finally, rehabilitation services delivered outside hospitals are typically less funded, less attractive to rehabilitation workers, financially and academically, and thereby less available to those in need [25, 96, 97]. …”

“…Finally, for a comprehensive determination of the rehabilitation workforce and of the unmet needs, studies can include how this workforce is allocated across employment sectors (public vs private; health vs educational/social), the healthcare continuum (primary, acute, post-acute, long-term care) and practice locations (inpatient, outpatient, home-based, community-based) [25, 71, 96, 97]. …”

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“…The demand-supply disequilibrium for Physiotherapy services represents a momentous shortcoming in sub-Saharan Africa [ 10 ]. Although, the number of practicing Physiotherapists have increased in some countries [ 11 , 12 ], the workforce growth is unlikely to overcome existing or future shortages [ 13 ]. This is because Physiotherapy services (or supply) have not kept pace with the increasing demand, causing an access (right to use) challenge in most settings [ 6 , 10 , 14 ].…”