The current pressures on the Australian health care system demand some radical surgery. About 9 per cent of Australians are already working in the health sector. This is the fastest growing employment sector, and it is predicted that by 2025 some 20 per cent of the workforce will need to be engaged in health-related jobs if we are to deliver the present level of services, let alone innovations. This increased demand for health workers -- driven by an ageing population, many of whom have chronic diseases -- will place significant pressures on a workforce already under stress.
Doctor, nurse and other health professional shortages in Australia are only a reflection of a worldwide trend, as exemplified by the recent World Health Organisation workforce report showing a 4.3 million shortfall in health workers globally over the next decade.
So what, apart from more cash, is needed? We have to make the health system more efficient: inject good business practice into the billion-dollar industry and expand the health workforce by creating new models of care, involving nurse practitioners, physician assistants, carers and other doctor extenders.
If we are to cope with the challenges of a greying Australia, we must not only invest in hospitals and expand the health workforce, we must also put more money into prevention -- stopping people needing medical treatment in the first place. We need to invest in Australia's healthy future by spending more on prevention and less on acute care. This should be done gradually, by each year reducing the acute care budget by 1 per cent and spending the money instead on disease prevention and health promotion. We should keep doing this so that by 2020 at least 20 per cent of the health dollar goes to programs that keep people out of hospital.
Professor Peter Brooks, Director
