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BTU researchers calculate that Georgia’s recorded outpatient visits rose by 6.0% in 2025, while physician numbers fell by 6.8% and nursing staff by 1.8%. With a new OECD study documenting persistent shortages of health professionals internationally, expanding Georgian services without retaining and developing the people who deliver them is an increasingly incomplete strategy.
Key Takeaways
- BTU researchers calculate that, between 2024 and 2025, Georgia recorded 954,000 additional outpatient visits, 1,648 fewer physicians and 394 fewer nursing staff; these are diverging measures of service use and personnel, not a measurement of individual workloads.
- Georgia’s total physician count includes dentists; using Geostat’s estimated occupational breakdown, BTU researchers calculate a 3.9% annual decline excluding dentists in 2025. The change therefore cannot be explained by that specialty alone.
- WHO’s Georgia study documents actual international recruitment and employment channels for health workers. BTU researchers assess that retention is consequently a shared concern for clinics, educators and government, although the available data cannot attribute the 2025 decline to migration.
More visits to a doctor can reflect better access, additional preventive checks, repeated consultations or greater medical need. These explanations differ, but they share a requirement: delivering a service takes appropriate knowledge and human time. Counting clinics, beds and equipment alone cannot establish whether a health system can provide the care its users seek.
Georgia’s latest complete annual figures make that distinction important. A major indicator of service use increased while the recorded numbers in two large professional groups declined. This does not establish that care deteriorated. It does mean that workforce planning cannot sensibly be detached from plans to expand services.
The international environment adds another consideration. On 14 October 2026, the OECD released a new study of skill shortages covering 38 countries, with data generally extending to 2024. Persistent shortages among health professionals are one of its findings. For Georgia, this is more than an observation about other countries: international movement of medical professionals is an existing connection. [1]
More service use and fewer recorded staff
Geostat’s tables record 16.760 million outpatient visits, including preventive services, in 2025, against 15.806 million in 2024. Over the same period, the physician count fell from 24,139 to 22,491 and nursing staff from 21,656 to 21,262. BTU researchers calculated the changes below from the unrounded source values. [2–4]
| Indicator in Georgia | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physicians of all specialties, persons | 24,139 | 22,491 | −6.8% |
| Physicians excluding dentists, persons | 21,230 | 20,412 | −3.9% |
| Nursing staff, persons | 21,656 | 21,262 | −1.8% |
| Outpatient visits, millions | 15.806 | 16.760 | +6.0% |
Source: Geostat; changes and the row excluding dentists are BTU calculations. Occupational breakdowns, including those used to exclude dentists, are estimates. Personnel are year-end counts; visits are annual flows. The table does not measure working hours or workload per employee.
Dentists account for a substantial part of the total physician decline. Applying the overall 6.8% fall to every clinical specialty would therefore be misleading. An additional check using the estimated occupational breakdown shows that the count excluding dentists also fell, by 818. The change extends beyond dentistry, although individual specialties, regions and institutions may have different experiences.
A visit is not a unique patient: someone may attend several times during a year. Nor does a personnel count reveal full-time-equivalent hours. The comparison describes movement in different parts of the system; dividing these series would not establish each worker’s workload.
Why an improving ratio can mislead
One ratio looks more reassuring. BTU researchers calculate that nursing staff per 100 physicians increased from 89.7 in 2024 to 94.5 in 2025. But no additional nursing staff produced that increase. Both groups declined; the physician denominator simply fell faster.
For an individual clinic, an improved staffing ratio might accompany a better division of responsibilities. A higher national ratio does not demonstrate that outcome. Service capability depends on skills, working hours, allocation between departments and the match with patient needs together.
Likewise, hospital beds increased from 14,964 to 15,232 in 2025. A team with appropriate skills and time turns physical infrastructure into usable care capacity. Plans to add beds and plans to prepare the workforce therefore need to be connected. [2]
International competition is already present
A shortage abroad reaches Georgia through an employment offer, a professional opportunity and a worker’s decision. When an overseas employer seeks a specialist, the Georgian clinic is no longer competing only with other local clinics.
WHO’s 2025 Georgia case study documents private recruitment of nursing personnel and temporary work abroad. It also explains that some people with nursing training work overseas as carers or assistants, so narrow statistics on professional migration do not fully capture their movement. [5]
The distinction matters. A person with nursing skills leaving Georgia and a registered nurse joining another country’s workforce are not necessarily the same statistical event. Counting only those employed abroad as nurses may therefore miss part of the potential loss to the domestic system. Conversely, international training and experience can benefit Georgia through return or professional cooperation.
Migration is a worker’s right and career choice. Restricting it is not the answer. The practical question is what makes continued work in Georgia attractive and how mobility can benefit both sides. Pay matters alongside schedules, professional learning, a safe workplace and credible advancement.
The available tables do not show how much of the 2025 decline reflects emigration, retirement, movement out of the profession or changes in records. International competition is consequently a documented channel of risk, not an explanation assigned to every reduction in the count.
Care continues outside the hospital
WHO’s Georgia profile, published on 8 October 2026, adds a demographic perspective: its 2023 estimate puts people aged 60 and over at 21.7% of the population. Some indicators of long-term-care coverage and formal care workers are unfilled. Missing values indicate an information gap, not the absence of services or carers. [6]
Age alone does not imply illness or dependence. Nevertheless, populations with different age profiles need different combinations of support. A consultation, rehabilitation and continuing assistance at home require different skills, time and organisation. A total physician count cannot establish whether that combination is available, just as a new clinic says little about support after someone returns home.
If professional help becomes harder to obtain, some care and coordination may shift to relatives. This can mean rearranging working hours, travelling or spending time finding services. For an employer, the issue may extend beyond the price of health insurance to staff availability and work planning. This research does not estimate the financial loss; it identifies the transmission mechanism.
Care capacity therefore concerns patients, families, clinics, education providers and ordinary businesses together. A shortage in one profession need not remain confined to its workplace. Its consequences may be felt by someone accompanying a relative or by an organisation arranging temporary cover for an employee.
Building a workforce that stays
BTU researchers assess that training and retention should be considered together. Enrolment in an educational programme is not a guaranteed reserve of future employees. Completion must be followed by practical preparation, entry into an appropriate job and continued participation in the profession. Each stage can have different obstacles; expanding admissions alone cannot resolve the entire sequence.
Cooperation between educators and clinics is valuable because it connects those stages. Students need to understand where and how they will acquire practical experience. Employers need to know the competencies a new colleague brings. Professional development becomes more meaningful when learning connects to real responsibilities and opportunities to advance. That link helps translate additional training into useful service capability.
A clinic’s retention decision should not be reduced to its wage bill. An experienced employee’s departure can entail recruitment, induction and redistribution of work. Better conditions are not automatically the cheapest option, but ignoring the costs of departure also produces an incomplete comparison.
For government and the sector, the central information task is to look beyond totals to distribution. Adding detailed information on working hours, age, specialty and location to personnel counts would clarify where more training is needed, where retention is the priority and where services need reorganising. A single national staffing coefficient cannot replace these decisions.
Conclusion
Georgia’s challenge is not simply to provide more services. It needs the professional foundation that makes those services available with the right knowledge and time. The official comparison shows recorded use and staff counts moving in opposite directions in 2025; the new international research highlights competition for the same kinds of professionals.
The answer to who will provide Georgia’s care is not a single number. It is a workforce whose preparation, retention and deployment are integral to service expansion. This connects health policy with education, families’ time and the functioning of the wider economy.
Questions and answers
Do more visits mean people became less healthy?
No. Visits measure service use and may include repeated or preventive consultations. Establishing a change in underlying illness requires other evidence.
Is the higher nursing ratio not an improvement?
The ratio increased, but not because Georgia had more nursing staff in 2025. Physician numbers fell faster. Actual team capability needs further assessment.
Did emigration cause the staff decline?
These data cannot establish the cause. WHO documents real international mobility channels, but they do not provide a causal breakdown of the 2025 change.
Why should non-medical businesses care?
Access to services for employees and their families can affect working-time arrangements and care coordination. The article examines this mechanism without calculating a financial loss.