During a typical 12-hour shift, Hector Hernandez can be found in just about any corner of Kaiser Sunset, tending to premature infants and the elderly, to patients with asthma and those with AIDS, to heart attack victims and survivors of car wrecks.
He connects patients to ventilators, evaluates lung capacity and blood gases and administers oxygen and aerosol medications. Clad in green scrubs and white running shoes, he is often the first to arrive on a "code blue" -- the term that is broadcast when a patient has stopped breathing.
Yet most of those he sees probably could not name his occupation. Hernandez, 49, is not a doctor or a nurse but a respiratory care practitioner.
"A lot of people don't hear much about respiratory therapists," he said. "We're there. We help you. We're gone."
Many patients also probably don't know that there are barely enough respiratory care therapists to go around.
Most people have heard about the nationwide nursing shortage. But the country is also experiencing a shortage of trained workers in the "allied health professions" -- respiratory care practitioners, medical transcriptionists, radiographers and about 200 other occupations that make up about 60% of healthcare workers.
"We call them the hidden healthcare workforce," said Susan Chapman, director of allied health studies at the UC San Francisco Center for the Health Professions. "In the policy arena, there isn't a lot of attention being paid to those folks."
Yet the care they provide is vital.
"You can't run a hospital without people to take the X-rays or do the lab tests," Chapman said.
According to a recent study, California, with its burgeoning population, lags behind the rest of the nation in the number of allied health professionals per capita.
If he wanted to, Hernandez, who has worked at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center in Hollywood for 22 years, could moonlight at three hospitals a week.
And as baby boomers like Hernandez, who now make up much of the allied health workforce, begin to retire, demand is expected to outstrip supply in at least nine of 15 occupations surveyed. Those with the highest projected need include pharmacy technicians, dental hygienists and physical therapist assistants.
"The aging of the population is a double whammy," said Michele Siqueiros, executive director of the nonprofit Campaign for College Opportunity. "It drives up demand [for health services] at the same time that people will be retiring from the very jobs that will be needed."
