United States anesthesiologists over 50: retirement decision making and workforce implications.

Background: Anesthesiology is among the medical specialties expected to have physician shortage. With little known about older anesthesiologists' work effort and retirement decision making, the American Society of Anesthesiologists participated in a 2006 national survey of physicians aged 50-79 yr.

Methods: Samples of anesthesiologists and other specialists completed a survey of work activities, professional satisfaction, self-defined health and financial status, retirement plans and perspectives, and demographics.

Cultural similarity, cultural competence, and nurse workforce diversity.

Proponents of health workforce diversity argue that increasing the number of minority health care providers will enhance cultural similarity between patients and providers as well as the health system's capacity to provide culturally competent care. Measuring cultural similarity has been difficult, however, given that current benchmarks of workforce diversity categorize health workers by major racial/ethnic classifications rather than by cultural measures. This study examined the use of national racial/ethnic categories in both patient and registered nurse (RN) populations and found them to be a poor indicator of cultural similarity.

An analysis of racial/ethnic pay disparities among hospital nurses in New York City.

Despite growing concern over cultural competence and diversity in the registered nursing (RN) workforce, minority RNs working in hospitals in New York City who were surveyed in 2007 earned less on average than their non-Hispanic White counterparts. Regression decomposition was applied to these data to investigate how much of the differential could be attributed to different characteristics of different racial/ethnic groups and how much could be attributed to differential valuation of characteristics between racial/ethnic groups. The earnings differential between Black/African American and non-Hispanic White RNs was about equally due to different characteristics and differential valuation of characteristics, but the earnings differentials between Hispanic/Latino RNs and non-Hispanic White RNs and between Asian/Pacific Islander RNs and non-Hispanic White RNs were about two-thirds due to different characteristics and one-third due to differential valuation of their characteristics.

Toward a new method for identifying facilities and communities with critical shortages of nurses.

This article summarizes the key findings of a study designed to evaluate the effectiveness of different methods for assessing the severity of nursing shortages in four types of health care facilities in the United States (hospitals, long-term care facilities, home health agencies, and public health agencies). The study involves testing several statistical models using currently available data to assess their accuracy and ease of use as possible bases for estimating and predicting the severity of nursing shortages in individual health care facilities. The assessments are based on criteria developed with the advice of panels of experts knowledgeable about each of the four types of facilities.

The emerging role of faith community nurses in prevention and management of chronic disease.

Faith community nursing, formerly known as parish nursing, is one model of care that relies heavily on older registered nurses (RNs) to provide population-based and other nonclinical services in community settings. Faith community nursing provides services not commonly available in the traditional health care system (e.g.