Todays Rural Healthcare Workforce Challenges

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Todays Rural Healthcare Workforce Challenges

• Rural Health Roundtable
• October 2, 2008
• Catherine Crowley
• Vice President

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Nationally Hospitals Face Workforce Shortages in
Key Care-giving Professions
Vacancy Rates for Selected Hospital Personnel,
December 2006
116,000 RN Vacancies
Source 2007 AHA Survey of Hospital Leaders Note
116,000 vacancies is a national estimate created
by extrapolating the vacancy rate to all 5,000
community hospitals in 2005. ST Speech
Therapist, OT Occupational Therapist, PT
Physical Therapist.
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Current Reality
Source 2007 Maryland Hospital Personnel Survey
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Future Reality
Source Who Will Care? The Case for Doubling
the Number of Nurses Educated in Maryland
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Our Challenges

• Aging workforce and retirements ? vacancy
• Aging population ? growing demand for services
• Educational capacity? limited
• Advances in technology ? improved diagnosis,
  treatment options, demand for services

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Passionate Partners
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Its a Regional Dilemma
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Initiatives
Nurse Support I and II

• Who Will Care?
• NSP I and NSP II
• Hospital Sponsored Scholarships, Shared Faculty
• Nurse Retention Collaborative
• Robert Wood Johnson Nursing Education Capacity
  Summit

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Sustaining the Healthcare Workforce . . .

• Partnerships are Key
• Funding is Crucial
• Innovation the Norm
• Public Policies Needed