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Forecasting the need for medical specialists in Spain: application of a system dynamics model
BACKGROUND: Spain has gone from a surplus to a shortage of medical doctors in very few years. Medium and long-term planning for health professionals has become a high priority for health authorities. METHODS: We created a supply and demand/need simulation model for 43 medical specialties using syste...
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Formato: | Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2010
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2987757/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21034458 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-8-24 |
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author | Barber, Patricia López-Valcárcel, Beatriz González |
author_facet | Barber, Patricia López-Valcárcel, Beatriz González |
author_sort | Barber, Patricia |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Spain has gone from a surplus to a shortage of medical doctors in very few years. Medium and long-term planning for health professionals has become a high priority for health authorities. METHODS: We created a supply and demand/need simulation model for 43 medical specialties using system dynamics. The model includes demographic, education and labour market variables. Several scenarios were defined. Variables controllable by health planners can be set as parameters to simulate different scenarios. The model calculates the supply and the deficit or surplus. Experts set the ratio of specialists needed per 1000 inhabitants with a Delphi method. RESULTS: In the scenario of the baseline model with moderate population growth, the deficit of medical specialists will grow from 2% at present (2800 specialists) to 14.3% in 2025 (almost 21 000). The specialties with the greatest medium-term shortages are Anesthesiology, Orthopedic and Traumatic Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, Plastic Aesthetic and Reparatory Surgery, Family and Community Medicine, Pediatrics, Radiology, and Urology. CONCLUSIONS: The model suggests the need to increase the number of students admitted to medical school. Training itineraries should be redesigned to facilitate mobility among specialties. In the meantime, the need to make more flexible the supply in the short term is being filled by the immigration of physicians from new members of the European Union and from Latin America. |
format | Text |
id | pubmed-2987757 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2010 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-29877572010-11-23 Forecasting the need for medical specialists in Spain: application of a system dynamics model Barber, Patricia López-Valcárcel, Beatriz González Hum Resour Health Methodology BACKGROUND: Spain has gone from a surplus to a shortage of medical doctors in very few years. Medium and long-term planning for health professionals has become a high priority for health authorities. METHODS: We created a supply and demand/need simulation model for 43 medical specialties using system dynamics. The model includes demographic, education and labour market variables. Several scenarios were defined. Variables controllable by health planners can be set as parameters to simulate different scenarios. The model calculates the supply and the deficit or surplus. Experts set the ratio of specialists needed per 1000 inhabitants with a Delphi method. RESULTS: In the scenario of the baseline model with moderate population growth, the deficit of medical specialists will grow from 2% at present (2800 specialists) to 14.3% in 2025 (almost 21 000). The specialties with the greatest medium-term shortages are Anesthesiology, Orthopedic and Traumatic Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, Plastic Aesthetic and Reparatory Surgery, Family and Community Medicine, Pediatrics, Radiology, and Urology. CONCLUSIONS: The model suggests the need to increase the number of students admitted to medical school. Training itineraries should be redesigned to facilitate mobility among specialties. In the meantime, the need to make more flexible the supply in the short term is being filled by the immigration of physicians from new members of the European Union and from Latin America. BioMed Central 2010-10-29 /pmc/articles/PMC2987757/ /pubmed/21034458 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-8-24 Text en Copyright ©2010 Barber and López-Valcárcel; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Methodology Barber, Patricia López-Valcárcel, Beatriz González Forecasting the need for medical specialists in Spain: application of a system dynamics model |
title | Forecasting the need for medical specialists in Spain: application of a system dynamics model |
title_full | Forecasting the need for medical specialists in Spain: application of a system dynamics model |
title_fullStr | Forecasting the need for medical specialists in Spain: application of a system dynamics model |
title_full_unstemmed | Forecasting the need for medical specialists in Spain: application of a system dynamics model |
title_short | Forecasting the need for medical specialists in Spain: application of a system dynamics model |
title_sort | forecasting the need for medical specialists in spain: application of a system dynamics model |
topic | Methodology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2987757/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21034458 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-8-24 |
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