{"id":3398,"date":"2025-06-21T21:31:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T21:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/3398\/"},"modified":"2025-06-21T21:31:21","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T21:31:21","slug":"we-must-grow-the-health-care-workforce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/3398\/","title":{"rendered":"We Must Grow the Health Care Workforce"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The shortages are even more acute in certain areas of the country.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/dead-zone-sickest-counties-slow-internet-broadband-desert-health-care-provider-shortage\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nearly 3 million Americans<\/a>\u00a0live in areas that lack both health care facilities and reliable high-speed internet. Without high-speed internet, telehealth isn\u2019t an option for care.<\/p>\n<p>Solving the workforce shortage isn\u2019t as simple as hiring more people or using technology to leverage existing clinicians. That\u2019s because the shortages exist for a number of reasons, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The high cost and time required to complete health care degree programs<\/li>\n<li>The time commitment required to become fully licensed, especially in the field of mental health<\/li>\n<li>Limited space in existing educational programs to take in more students<\/li>\n<li>Burnout that has led to more resignations (over\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcknights.com\/news\/healthcare-worker-burnout-persists-above-prepandemic-levels-survey-reveals\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">35% of health care workers report feeling burned out<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>Many current health care professionals reaching retirement age<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Addressing training needs<\/p>\n<p>At Kaiser Permanente, we support clinical education and training opportunities to address the health care worker shortage.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re focused on the high cost of education and the extensive time commitment needed to become fully licensed. Our goals are to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bring more professionals into health care roles where they\u2019re needed most<\/li>\n<li>Help skilled professionals enter the field as quickly as possible<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We\u2019ve created schools and programs to help us achieve these goals.<\/p>\n<p>We also have programs specifically for the field of mental health.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/scholarsacademy.kaiserpermanente.org\/our-academies\/mental-health-scholars-academy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mental Health Scholars Academy<\/a>\u00a0provides financial assistance and training for Kaiser Permanente employees who want to become mental health therapists, counselors, or social workers.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/about.kaiserpermanente.org\/news\/accelerating-growth-in-the-mental-health-care-workforce\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mental Health Workforce Accelerator<\/a>\u00a0removes barriers to licensure for master\u2019s-level students and graduates. The programs offer salary stipends, options for clinical supervision, and job placements during the licensure process.<\/li>\n<li>The Mental Health Post-Master\u2019s Associate Program helps mental health graduates get the supervised clinical hours they need to obtain a license to practice.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These programs are making a difference. But the workforce shortage is a problem greater than any one organization can solve. We need support from policy leaders.<\/p>\n<p>How policymakers can help<\/p>\n<p>To help solve the health care worker shortage, policy leaders should:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Expand and reform graduate medical education to train more health care professionals in areas of greatest need, such as primary care, psychiatry, and addiction medicine<\/li>\n<li>Support programs that offer tuition assistance, loan forgiveness, scholarships, and stipends across in-demand health fields<\/li>\n<li>Support programs that help mental health graduates get the supervised clinical practice hours required for licensure<\/li>\n<li>Promote the effective use of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/about.kaiserpermanente.org\/news\/why-the-us-needs-more-community-health-workers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">community health workers<\/a>\u00a0and peer support specialists<\/li>\n<li>Remove barriers to telehealth and support the safe use of virtual care across state lines, so that more people can get the care they need, no matter where they live<\/li>\n<li>Invest in team-based and integrated care to create efficiencies and prevent burnout<\/li>\n<li>Streamline licensing requirements, especially in mental health, to avoid therapists being subject to different requirements in different states<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We took a more in-depth look at the issue of licensure during our\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kpihp.org\/ihp_events\/advancing-licensure-growing-the-mental-health-care-workforce\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recent Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy forum<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Policy changes such as these can ensure the U.S. has enough health care workers to care for all patients \u2014 now and in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The shortages are even more acute in certain areas of the country.\u00a0Nearly 3 million Americans\u00a0live in areas that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[210,1141,1142,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-3398","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114723493514370180","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}