Reports > State Responses to Health
Worker Shortages: Results of 2002 Survey of States > Executive
Summary
Health
workers are the most critical resource in any health care system.
Currently, health worker shortages across the nation are restricting
access to needed health services and may potentially reduce the
quality of care. The shortages span a wide range of professions
and occupations from nurses to pharmacists to home health aides.
The health care system, including hospitals, nursing homes, home
health agencies, laboratories, and others are struggling to recruit
and retain health workers. For the past several years, education
programs in numerous health professions have experienced significant
drops in applications and enrollments, despite the continued demand
for their graduates.
The
responsibility for educating, training, employing and retaining
health workers in the health field is primarily the responsibility
of the education and health sectors. Although both sectors have
taken some actions in response to health worker shortages, state
governments have been asked and are expected to play a major role
in helping to assure an adequate supply of health workers to meet
health care needs in their states.
In
response to health workforce shortages, most states have established
task forces or commissions to assess the problems and to develop
recommendations for programs and policies. Over the past two years,
these state task forces and commissions have reviewed the available
data, gathered new data and information, explored their policy options,
and have begun to recommend new or expanded programs and policies.
In response to these recommendations and their own analyses, many
states have begun to implement new policies and initiatives. This
makes 2002 a very opportune time to assess how states are responding
to the shortages and to share this information among the states.
With
support from the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis in
the federal Bureau of Health Professions at the Health Resource
and Services Administration, the Center for Health Workforce Studies
at the School of Public Health of the University at Albany SUNY
conducted a study of how states were responding to health workforce
shortages in order to provide guidance to other states. While there
are a number of well known initiatives to address shortages of physicians,
particularly primary care physicians, less is known about strategies
to address shortages of other health workers. The focus of the study
was state responses to shortages of non-physicians.
The
Center canvassed all 50 states in spring of 2002. Key state organizations,
including governors' offices as well as departments of health, education
and labor, were asked to complete a one-page fax back questionnaire
briefly describing their states' efforts to address shortages of
health workers (see State Details). This
was supplemented by information obtained through follow-up interviews
of state officials responsible for many of these programs and from
state Internet sites. Staff from the Center for Best Practices at
the National Governors Association helped disseminate the surveys
to the states. The results of this study form the basis for this
report.
Data were obtained on all 50 states and Puerto Rico. The following
is a summary on how states are responding to health worker shortages.
It is followed by a state-by-state summary. This report contains
a profile of each state's response to health workforce shortages,
detailing current initiatives, available web sites describing these
initiatives and state contacts.
This
report presents a "snapshot" of state responses to health
worker shortages as of mid 2002. It is likely that many new programs
and policies will be adopted by individual states over the next
few years. Nevertheless, the report will be helpful to policy makers
and others interested in developing new policies and programs. It
may be valuable to repeat the survey in the future, perhaps annually,
as long as shortages persist and states continue to try to address
health workforce issues.
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