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Session Evaluation

AOHC 2026 Concurrent Sessions

OEM Related Management and Administration

124 - Solutions to Preserve OEM into the Next Generation

Sunday, April 19, 2026
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM CT
Location: Chicago Ballroom IX
Claim 1.0 CME

All relevant financial relationships have been mitigated.


Disclosure(s):

Matthew Hamm, MD, MBA, MPH, MHA, FACOEM: No financial relationships to disclose
Akbar Sharip, MD, MPH, FACOEM: No financial relationships to disclose
Alya Khan, MD, MS, FACOEM: No financial relationships to disclose
Robert J. Harrison, MD, MPH: No financial relationships to disclose
Philip Harber, MD MPH: No financial relationships to disclose
Session Description: The United States is experiencing a worsening shortage of OEM physicians. As of 2024, only 3,265 board-certified OEM physicians remain for a workforce of over 160 million — a ratio of just 2 per 100,000 workers, compared with 10-40 per 100,000 in Europe. Nationally, only about 50 OEM physicians graduate each year, while more than 3x that number retire annually. And our decline is hastening.

Expanding OEM training and practitioners would yield a significant return on investment, generating billions in employer and tax savings while strengthening worker health, employer productivity, and national resilience.

This session will expand on evidence from the WOEMA Position Paper and Call-to-Action published in JOEM (2025). We will review the causes and scope of the crisis, make the economic case for investment, and learn innovative solutions currently being piloted and implemented for stabilizing and growing the OEM workforce.

Educational Gaps: Policymakers remain unaware of the severity of the OEM physician shortage and its downstream costs. Academic and health system leaders lack familiarity with sustainable funding mechanisms (Medicare GME, NIOSH support, state-based training funds, corporate partnerships). Evidence of OEM’s value has not been translated into policy adoption or residency expansion.

Is this session being sponsored by an ACOEM Section or Component?: Yes, WOEMA

Has this session previously been presented?: No

The AOHC 2026 theme is Healthy workers. Healthy world: This session directly supports that theme by:
1. Addressing how an insufficient OEM workforce compromises worker health, employer productivity, and public safety.
2. Highlighting OEM’s role in responding to climate change, industrial disasters, pandemics, and national defense readiness.
3. Showing how investments in OEM workforce training strengthen not only worker well-being but also the broader economy, environment, and national resilience.
4. Presenting innovative and tested solutions to the workforce shortage, rather than simply restating the problem.

Learning Objectives:

  • Describe the magnitude and economic impact of the OEM physician shortage in the United States.
  • Evaluate the projected return on investment (ROI) from expanding and reimagining OEM residencies to stabilizing the training pipeline.
  • Discuss concrete policy solutions to increase and sustain the OEM workforce, including Medicare GME inclusion, new routes to federal funds, state funding (CA OEM Training Fund), corporate training partnerships, tuition-based executive programs, early exposure and recruitment of trainees, alternatives to the MPH requirement, consolidation of programs, and new certification pathways.