The Defense Health Agency has a clear vision: “the unrelenting pursuit of excellence as we care for our joint force and those we are privileged to serve. Anytime, Anywhere—Always.” In the post-pandemic healthcare workforce, military healthcare contractors are integral to supporting the Defense Health Agency (DHA) in providing healthcare services to service members and their families and as partners in striving towards that vision.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed the landscape of all industries, including the healthcare industry. Now that we are in the post-COVID-19 landscape, it’s essential to reflect on the post-pandemic healthcare workforce, including industry challenges, and how we can be poised to meet current and future healthcare needs.
Insights and a Pathway to Continued Effective Partnerships
As essential workers during an unprecedented global pandemic, healthcare workers experienced a surge in pay rates as a stop-gap measure to address the demand for personnel, the increased risk in personal safety, and the sustained heavy workloads pushing healthcare facilities’ capacity limits. While the pandemic demands have subsided, current wages remain high due in no small part to the healthcare personnel shortages.
While all sectors are experiencing labor shortages, the healthcare industry has been especially hard hit. By November 2022, healthcare and social assistance workers left employment at rates 32.5% higher than before the pandemic, according to healthsystemtracker.org. During the same period, workers in other professions had a high quit rate, 21.1%, but still lower than the healthcare industry. Many factors account for the shortages. Some healthcare workers had to leave the workforce to meet the needs of younger children who no longer had in-person school or available and dependable childcare. Shortages of teachers, afterschool staff, and ancillary student support services such as school transportation continue to affect healthcare workers juggling work schedules and parent responsibilities.
Other healthcare workers left the field due to burnout. The COVID-19 pandemic stressed the system and workers, resulting in healthcare workers moving to different careers.
For healthcare contractors who received awards pre-COVID, this is particularly challenging. Pre-pandemic contract awards are increasingly difficult to deliver partly due to the differential between pre and post-pandemic wages.
Many contractor healthcare workers moved to higher-paying travel positions and private sector facilities that could more easily address barriers or departed from the workforce entirely. The workforce shift continues to impact the Military Health System (MHS) today, more than three years after the pandemic began.
To meet the needs of the MHS, government contractors and the DHA must work together and in parallel to adapt to the post-pandemic environment and to implement solutions. For contractors, this partnership could focus on technology enablers to provide better employment support and a focus on company culture. The partnership could streamline approval processes for the DHA to hasten contractor start dates and offer flexible schedules. There are many solutions, from simple to complex, to adapt to the post-pandemic healthcare workforce to further the DHA vision.
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