Supply and demand prognosis for radiographers 2012–2030 and competence assessment

Radiology is one of the fastest developing areas of modern medicine, in which technological progress, increased number of radiological studies and their growing complexity and scope require strategic demand and supply planning of the human resource. The key goal of the supply planning of radiographers is to ensure that Lithuanian health care institutions employ the required number of such specialists, which would guarantee that the popu¬lation’s needs for adequate radiological services are met. While planning the need for Rs, the present supply is explored in order to determine how many of these professionals will be needed in the future and what factors will lead to their shortage or surplus. Higher education studies for radiographers, which in Lithuania were launched in 2013 will have an impact on the specialist supply over the next two decades. Due to the different periods of studies, it will be difficult to ensure the radiographers’ balance in the labour market; it is also likely that the changes in vocational training will influence specialists in the labour market. For this reason, the aim of our work was to plan the demand and supply of radiographers in Lithuanian health care institutions until 2030 and to evaluate the professional competence in the present labour market from radiographers’ and radiologists’ point of view. We applied needs-based method, that assesses the population’s use of radiographers’ services by age and gender – which has not been applied before. The study of radiographers’ competence by employing a questionnaire prepared by Swedish researchers allowed for the first time in Lithuania to assess the professional competence of radiographers