States to Focus on Health Care Workforce

WASHINGTON—The National Governors Association (NGA) today announced the selection of seven states—Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Wisconsin—to develop and implement statewide plans for their health care workforce.  

An accessible, well-trained and flexible health care workforce is vital to states’ efforts to improve quality of health care and control its cost. The Building a Transformed Health Care Workforce: Moving from Planning to Implementation policy academy will help states develop a plan to serve as a roadmap for implementing health workforce policies that support governors’ broad statewide goals.

“The health care workforce is crucial to improving the quality and efficiency of health care, and we must prepare them for the changes occurring in the health care environment,” said Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear. “Kentucky looks forward to working with other states as we implement our health workforce action plan.”

Several topics will be addressed during the sessions, including:

  • Structure of health workforce;
  • Data collection and analysis;
  • Recruitment and retention;
  • Stakeholder engagement and building consensus;
  • Scope of practice and Licensing;
  • New types of professionals;
  • Reimbursement and payment; and
  • Education and Training.

A policy academy is a highly interactive, team-based, multi-state process for helping a select number of states develop and implement plan to address a complex public policy issue. Participating states receive guidance and technical assistance from NGA staff and faculty experts as well as consultants from the private sector, research organizations and academia.