Sustainability of health and care systems: Modelling the nursing employment dynamics in an ageing population

Abstract

This study aims to develop an actuarial model to recognise and determine the quality of the healthcare policies, needed to ensure the sustainability of health care systems in terms of a sufficient number of skilled nurses that will cater to the demand of healthcare services from a growing number of older adults in an ageing society and due to pandemics. We have applied the actuarial-mathematical method, which resulted in the proposed multiple decrement model of nurse workforce dynamics. It enables the measurement of the quality of a given national policy system. We built the case of the selected EU economy by applying the proposed model to available statistical data and 15 interviews with nurses, analysed by content analysis. The findings emphasise a lack of nurses in the present as well as a possible lack in the future. It is up to national policies to improve this situation based on the use of the proposed multiple decrement model.