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.