The need for the physician and pharmacist workforce specialized in oncology in various areas of the world is quite high. The research under consideration is based on understanding the physician and pharmacist workforce’s geographic distribution specialized in oncology in the United States.
The data was collected from the already published source National Provider Identifier data. Data identified the two types of oncology workforce via the healthcare provider taxonomy codes. On obtaining the data, the geographic density of the physician and pharmacist oncology workforce was calculated.
The result depicted that out of 30,553 members of the oncology workforce in 2019, 28,681 were oncologists, and 1,090 were oncology pharmacists. Further to the analysis, the mean county-level density of oncologists was 2.94 per 100,000 persons. Simultaneously 64% of the counties had no locally available oncologists, while another 12% had no oncologists in the local and adjacent counties.
The mismatched demand and supply characterized the current oncology workforce in the USA. The discrepancy was widespread, and it emphasized the importance of developing the basic competencies for healthcare professionals. The focus should be preparing the professionals who are not specialized in oncology to deliver quality cancer care in such areas.
Ref: https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/OP.20.00600
