Room to Grow

Washington State needs 23,000 additional nurses within 10 years.  The United States will need more than 90,000 additional physicians within 10 years.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that demand for pharmacists, physical and occupational therapists, imaging specialists and many others will also exceed supply by significant margins. Right now there simply not enough student seats, clinical education slots, or faculty members to train the volume of students needed to meet the need.

Expanding capacity is a key issue for the Institute. Our work in this area has resulted in spots for 1700 additional students in health care training programs across the state. Clearly, with the size of the need, there is plenty of work to be done. The Institute is tackling capacity building from several different angles:

• First, the Institute has set a goal of developing a statewide plan for health care training by 2011. The Institute will work with the Legislature and other partners to develop a statewide plan to set goals for college and university health care training and education program expansion and coordinates public investments to meet those goals.
• The second facet addresses the issue of limited clinical education slots. We hope to expand  a demonstration project based in Pierce County to a statewide database of clinical education slots. The project has proven to increase access to clinical education by coordinating and utilizing unused capacity across hospitals and schools. The goal is to implement a business model that will allow the statewide database to become self-sustaining.
• Another avenue is the expansion of health care training and education programs that diverge from the traditional educational model and have the potential to significantly expand the work force and/or expand its diversity. These may include the use of e-learning strategies, work-based learning, or other promising technologies.

We continue to seek new strategies to expand health care training and education programs and will support our partners in implementing these strategies.