Wyoming Healthcare Workforce Project

Overview

The Department of Health's Resources and Services Administration, through Requests for Proposals, provided $5 million to foster state partnerships that will guide planning and implementation of workforce development plans to increase Full Time Equivalent primary care workforce by 10-25% over the next ten years. Wyoming qualified for a one-year planning grant of $150,000, with the funding period closing in June of 2011.

Current projections for Wyoming's primary care workforce are sobering based on the now defunct Wyoming Health Care Commission:

• Projections show Wyoming's health care industry will need a total of 3,307 more nurses by 2014. This represents more than double the number of RNs working in health care between 2006 and 2014.
• Wyoming ranks above the national average for health care expenditures for hospital care and physician services yet is ranked 35th in healthcare quality.
• Approximately $134 million in state funds are spent per biennium to educate Wyoming students in health care fields and recruit health care providers, yet 19 of our 23 counties are federally designated as having shortages of primary care providers.
• Nearly half (49 percent) of Wyoming's physicians and 52 percent of its advanced nurse practitioners are age 51 or older.
• Wyoming's 254 practicing dentists represent 49 dentists per 100,000 people, well below the national average (66 per 100,000). Over half of these dentists are age 51 or older.

As a whole, the industry will need to add 7,554 jobs (24.1 percent) in Wyoming from 2008 to 2018. Three of the industry's four subsectors are projected to see substantial employment increases: ambulatory health care services (2,646 jobs, or 30.9 percent), hospitals (2,295, or 20.8 percent), and social assistance (1,812, or 28.4 percent.

The Healthcare Workforce Project held several meetings and developed four main working groups: These four working groups have developed the goals listed below:

• Data Goals
• Education and Training Goals
• Expanding Capacity Goals
• Recruitment and Retention Goals

At the final meeting, several reports were presented:

• Recruitment & Retention of Wyoming's Primary Care Workforce
• WHRN - A Quality of Life for our Primary Care Providers
• Telehealth in Wyoming - What Wyoming Offers with the Current Telehealth System
• Rock Springs Health Academy, Developing a Health Care Talent Pipeline

Final Reporting Documents

• Final Report
• Executive Summary
• Planning Form