In response to demands for local workforce data that provides actionable information, HWS launched Labor Market Pulse in 2008, a first of-its-kind, centralized and local workforce planning tool for health care employers in three major markets. In the spring of 2009, HWS launched the HWS Labor Market Pulse® Index (LMPI), a quarterly barometer of local market health care workforce expansion and contraction that immediately expands the footprint of Labor Market Pulse to 30 markets.
Patterned loosely after the Case-Shiller home index and based on a proprietary algorithm, the LMPI identifies and enables comparison of 30 and soon to be 36 health care labor markets by tracking elements including temporary health workforce shortages and surpluses, facility and bed closures, announced layoffs and expansions, and local economic trends. The LMPI will be published quarterly as part of Labor Market Pulse™ and distributed nationally to health care executives, the media and other interested parties.