Community health centers are a vital part of the primary and behavioral health care systems in rural areas. This article compares the staffing and services at these centers in both rural and urban communities. Findings show that behavioral health staff currently participating in the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) contributed more to visits for depression…
Difficulties in recruiting allied health professionals to rural and underserved areas are cause for concern given projections of increasing demand for numerous allied health occupations. Incentive programs are a common strategy to address health professional shortages. This report describes allied health incentive programs at the state level—their goals, policies, practices, and available data on their…
The psychiatric workforce shortage remains a serious issue in the field of behavioral health. In 2018, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) designated 5,124 mental health professional shortage areas in the United States. Demand for the psychiatry workforce is projected to exceed the supply by 16,450 workers by 2030. Studies continue to show that…
Rapidly emerging technological advances could mitigate rising health workforce demand, but will not replace the direct care workforce, according to a new study from UCSF Health Workforce Research Center on Long-Term Care. The report includes a taxonomy of currently available and emerging technology categories based on products sold by 115 companies, in addition to targeted…
Nursing homes are important for providing accessible long-term care options for post-acute care patients. Unfortunately, the quality of care for these patients in the nursing home setting is often inadequate. This article examines the roles and relationships between directors of nursing and physicians in nursing homes to determine how these relationships affect patient care.
The Health Resources and Service Administration’s (HRSA) mission is “To improve health outcomes and address health disparities through access to quality services, a skilled health workforce, and innovative, high-value programs.” To support this mission, HRSA supports primary care postgraduate dental (PGD) training programs through competitive grant funding. A recent research study conducted by the Oral…
Prior research has confirmed increasing gender diversity in dental education programs and dental workforce. While there is discussion that the increasing gender diversity in dentistry will affect practice models, work hours, and the availability of specialty dentists or dentists in less populated areas, there is limited research that describes variation in characteristics of dental practice…
Incorporating the consumer perspective on access to oral health services is important in the design of public policy and programming to improve the oral health status of the population. The Oral Health Workforce Research Center (OHWRC) collaborated with the Workforce Studies team at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) to conduct a survey of…
There is growing recognition of the relationship between mental illness and behavioral health disorders with oral and physical health status. Safety net provider organizations are key to providing integrated care for many of their patients with mental health or substance use disorders. The Oral Health Workforce Research Center conducted 6 case studies of Federally Qualified…
Policies that support graduate medical education (GME) have goals of increasing the proportion of program graduates who remain in generalist practice and, for pediatrics, in subspecialties supported through the Children’s Hospital Graduate Medical Education Program. Policy attention has also focused on promoting practice in primary care health professional shortage areas, and in rural and micropolitan…
