ACS HPRI maps surgeon supply across U.S.

To raise awareness about the health and safety challenges posed by the nation's shortage of surgeons and to show how the shortage is hitting some counties harder than others, especially in rural areas, the American College of Surgeons Health Policy Research Institute (ACS HPRI) released a new publication that maps the surgeon supply across the United States.

Generated by a team of ACS HPRI analysts, Mapping the Supply of Surgeons in the United States, 2009, is a collection of national, regional, and state-level maps of the total and general surgeon workforce, relative to population density. ACS HPRI is an organization which studies and reports on issues related to the state of the surgical profession, surgical workforce and surgical utilization in the United States.

"As the population and access to health care insurance continue to grow, as life expectancy increases, and as the number of new surgeons coming into practice lags far behind the number of surgeons nearing retirement, more and more patients will not have timely access to quality surgical care," said George F. Sheldon, MD, FACS, Director of the ACS Health Policy Research Institute who developed the publication along with Co-Director Thomas J. Ricketts, Ph.D. "With these maps, we want to help health care planners, practitioners and policymakers understand the migration of the surgeon workforce, and to help patients identify places with limited access to surgical services."

Mapping the Supply of Surgeons in the United States, 2009, presents the geographic distribution of surgeons relative to populations, county‐by‐county maps of the surgeon‐to-population ratio, and places where the supply appears to meet estimates of adequacy. It is available for immediate download, at no charge on the ACS HPRI website at www.acshpri.org.

Eventually, the publication will be expanded to an online Atlas which will contain demographic data on all surgical specialties.

The 2009 American Medical Association (AMA) Physician Masterfile served as the primary data source for the publication and it was produced in collaboration with the Association of American Medical Colleges.