Published April 2003

Worker shortage reported across county, state

By Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor

The demand for health-care workers in Washington state has reached a crisis point, says a report released by the Health Care Personnel Shortage Task Force, a group of industry, labor and education representatives formed at the request of state legislators to address the issue.

“The shortage is so severe, (the) industry has resorted to importing workers from other countries, and utilizing temporary-employment agencies for regular staffing needs, despite exorbitant costs,” according to the recent report, “Health Care Workforce Shortage: Crisis or Opportunity?”

What’s behind the shortage? Task force findings point to educational capacity — or lack thereof — to train health-care workers.

“While health-care employers search for staff, a large number of Washington’s health-care training programs report they are turning away qualified students because the programs lack the capacity, faculty and clinical sites to train them,” the report states.

For example, 56 state programs offering nursing and allied health training reported waiting lists in 2001, with Washington State University’s School of Nursing having to turn away two-thirds of undergraduate applicants.

Occupations facing critical shortages are nurses, medical aides, dental hygienists, laboratory personnel, pharmacists, physicians and radiology technologists, among others, the report says, noting that in the past year, 55 percent of state hospitals went on “divert status” — being forced to send patients to other facilities due to a staff shortage.

Those aren’t just statewide shortages. In Snohomish County, more than half of area hospitals have reported difficulty in recruiting in those fields, the report says.

And a survey of local health-care facilities by the Snohomish County Workforce Development Council found that the top two occupational shortages are registered nurses and radiology technologists.

“It’s a critical shortage,” said Gaye Ishimaru, work-force development coordinator for the council, which in 2002 received funding from the state Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board to establish a countywide health skills panel to address the problems at hand.

Started this past January, the panel of health-care educators, employers and workers is looking at ways to increase training capacity while maintaining quality of care, improve retention within the health-care industry and get the word out to a diverse audience that health-care workers are in demand, Ishimaru said.

The goals mirror those of the Health Care Personnel Shortage Task Force, whose priority recommendations toward meeting those goals include:

• Empowering local communities to address local shortages through such tools as health skills panels.
• Providing more funding for health-care education and training.
• Providing compensation to health-care faculty that competes with wages earned outside of teaching.
• Expanding clinical training capacity by through joint efforts of employers and educators.

It’s about “thinking outside the box” to solve the shortage, Ishimaru said, including looking at ways to collaborate with regional educational institutions and health-care providers.

One example, Ishimaru said, is the new Radiologic Technology program headed up by Bellingham Technical College in partnership with five community colleges, including Edmonds and Everett, to train radiologic technologists using local clinical facilities and distance-learning tools (see related article).

Along with participating in the Radiologic Technology program, the two local community colleges also have expanded their educational offerings to meet the growing demand for health-care workers, with EvCC expanding its nursing program to double the number of students entering and graduating and EdCC starting an Allied Health program.

“We are now admitting between 30 and 40 (nursing) students per quarter, then graduating 25 to 30 as they go through that pipeline,” said Dr. Patricia Black, dean of Nursing & Health Professions at EvCC.

But with the costs involved in keeping a student-faculty ratio of 1-to10 and the difficulty in recruiting qualified faculty to the public-education arena, the waiting list still exceeds the college’s capacity, she said, noting that the program had 108 applicants for 35 slots during the winter quarter.

At EdCC, student demand for the Allied Health program has been strong, with prerequisite classes all filled, said Elizabeth Patterson, health programs coordinator. The program, which offers certification opportunities in EKG technician, patient care technician, pharmacy technician, phlebotomy technician, health information technology and nurse assistant, started during winter quarter.

“There aren’t waiting lists as yet, since the program just started,” she said. “But the interest has been tremendous. We’ve had information sessions, with 20 to 25 students per information session.”

“The community needs to understand that we’re doing everything we can to address the shortage,” Black said. “But even the applicants, they’re discouraged when they don’t get in, but we’re just not able to take everybody that wants to get in.”

Related article: Regional radiology program gets federal funding

Related article: Skills center "first rung" on training ladder

Back to the top/April 2003 Main Menu