Quantifying the shortfall in the Physician Workforce across Georgia - Dissertation Example

This research study encompasses several associated aspects. Besides quantifying current and future need for physicians in Georgia which is the main aim of this study, this research study also seek to identify the consistency of the physician workforce across all Georgia counties; to identify whether Georgia student residents are sufficient or not to meet the growing need for healthcare and remain in-state to practice medicine and if Georgia physician per capita is equal to or greater than surrounding states.

These aspects also incorporate identifying the physician shortage modification for disease, such as stroke, heart disease, obesity, and/or diabetes. Studying these areas will help identify if there is an imbalance of need among different counties in Georgia and if specific areas of Georgia might have a more serious need for physicians; what is the need given federal and state assistance programs; supply and demand issues; if a restructure of physician care to more mid-level care is sufficient to meet the growing need; and policy decisions need to meet the physician demand for Georgians.

This research mainly focuses on secondary sources of data where data from different sources are compared to reach conclusions about the shortfall in physician workforce in Georgia. Many different data sources are used to make sure the research is valid and uses authentic sources. Data considered in this research come from the sources such as Georgia Physicians Workforce; State Medical Board; State Licensure; Georgia Public Health; Census; CDC; and the Dartmouth Atlas. Additional important data resources are The County Health Rankings (key component of the Mobilizing Action toward Community Health (MATCH) project); where MATCH is collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.

  Comparisons and conclusions about physician shortfalls reached by this study are direct and simple as they are more or less quantitative where figures quoted by different authentic sources are enough to prove the results. However, the major emphasis of this study is recommendations and suggestions portion which is mainly led by a discussion on issues which are difficult to adequately address only with the help of data presented by