A Health Resources and Services Administration report stated that 77% of US counties experienced severe psychiatrist shortages in 2017, and yet 1 in 5 American adults experience a mental illness in a given year. There is a pressing need to map the supply of prescribing psychiatric workforce. This report maps the supply of psychiatrists, advanced…
Authorizing nurse practitioners and physician assistants to prescribe medication-assisted treatment (MAT) has the potential to expand Americans’ access to opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment, as nurse practitioners are more likely to serve rural and Medicaid-eligible populations than physicians, and physician assistants specialize in expanding physicians’ practice. This report helps to understand how the Comprehensive Addiction…
The field of behavioral health is experiencing a shortfall of licensed providers. Community health workers (CHWs) and peer recovery specialists (PRSs) function as critical components of the workforce that can mitigate access and treatment gaps. Increasing demand for behavioral health services, exacerbated by the ongoing opioid epidemic, has intensified the need for addiction counselors (ACs),…
Title VII, Section 747, of the Public Health Service Act directs funding to medical schools and residency programs to strengthen the primary care workforce in underserved communities. Previous research found that physicians who attended a Title VII funded medical school were more likely to practice in primary care, locate in underserved communities, practice in community…
The rate of Medicare recipients seeking care in health professional shortage areas (HPSAs) has been increasing. The National Health Survey Corps (NHSC) has been important for helping to staff HPSAs, but little is known about the role of these providers in caring for Medicare recipients. This abstract describes a study that used Medicare billing data…
HWTAC is conducting an ongoing survey of states to learn more about their health workforce data collection and analysis efforts. This report describes findings to date from the 2018 survey, and includes information about data collection on health workforce supply and demand, and the educational pipeline in specific US states.
Millions of Americans suffer from a diagnosable mental health condition and deaths related to opioid misuse have been skyrocketing over the past 2 decades. The current behavioral health workforce tasked with addressing these issues is currently experiencing a shortage and projections foresee this shortage continuing in the coming years. However, the behavioral health workforce has…
As part of the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Shortage Designation Modernization Project, HRSA is asking PCOs to update state correctional facility and state/county mental hospital designations by July 2nd. This webinar reviews the criteria for these types of designations and includes an interactive panel discussion on things to consider/best practices. Time is also…
During this webinar, the presenters discuss some of the considerations necessary for preparing and presenting health workforce demand data using online interactive dashboards, based on their experience with the Washington State Health Workforce Sentinel Network. Topics covered include: how to create dashboards based on data that are updated periodically, data privacy concerns, software and hardware…
Collecting, analyzing and disseminating health workforce demand data to inform state health workforce planning can be costly and time-consuming, and secondary data sources that provide detailed and timely demand information are rare, if available at all. Nonetheless, as healthcare transformation proceeds, there is great need to detect signals of changes in health workforce demand in…
