Dr. Angela N. Haas

The Susquehanna Health System, which includes Williamsport Hospital, uses the Longshore & Simmons figures as part of its recruitment needs assessment, according to Angela Haas, M.D., the system's vice president of strategic and business development.By keeping tabs on the retirement plans of the 200 or so physicians in its service area and comparing anticipated changes in physician supply with the benchmarks, Susquehanna Health projects its workforce needs.

The region's current physician supply shows no serious deficit, says Haas, although the region is currently below physician-to-population benchmark ratios for general surgery, internal medicine, orthopedic surgery, ENT, pediatrics and psychiatry.Factoring in physician retirement plans, an aging population and the health system's projected needs, Haas anticipates a shortage in five to ten years in primary care, obstetrics, pediatrics and psychiatry, Haas adds.In terms of recruitment efforts, she says, "The key is not to get behind.
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The physician density ratios also do not account for wait times for some medical services in the region, such as colonoscopies, with some gastroenterologists in the region no longer accepting new referrals because of workload, says Haas.Very few primary care physicians in the region are accepting new patients, and Haas says that her own family practice stopped doing so 18 moths ago and averages eight to ten phone calls per day from patients looking for new physicians.

"The benefits are incredible," says Angela N. Haas, M.D., assistant director of The Williamsport Hospital Family Practice Residency Program and a physician with Loyalsock Family Practice, the first physician office in the System's pilot program."Everything we need to know about the patient is right there in front of us in a streamlined organized manner."The computer also allows doctors to do instant checks for reactions to medications and fax prescriptions to pharmacies, eliminating errors that sometimes occur in deciphering different handwriting samples."In addition," she adds, "the computer provides instant access to guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of common medical illness, designed by experts in the field."
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Ms. Wirth and Karen Schuler, R.N. MIS Clinical Analyst along with Dr. Haas and a team of physicians worked closely to develop and implement the pilot program.
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Dr. Haas says that although the program is still only in the pilot stages, she is very pleased with the results so far and feels that eventually all doctors will have their patient's charts on a computer.To see that new doctors are familiar with this program, she says the project will be presented to the System's Family Practice Residency Program, that trains physicians in this specialty of family medicine, this spring.