Health Workforce Research e-Library

This study identifies key components of registered MA apprenticeship programs in the U.S. and describes implementation approaches. It describes motivations for, as well as barriers and facilitators to implementing apprenticeships. Findings help clarify the development, design, and expansion of MA apprenticeship programs in the U.S. and offer employers and other sponsors alternative ways to adopt this workforce development approach.

As quality incentives are further integrated into payment systems, community health centers (CHCs) will need to optimize their workforce configuration to improve quality. Given the relative efficiency of advanced practice clinicians in producing quality, further hiring of these professionals is a cost‐effective investment for CHCs. This article explores optimal workforce configurations in the production of care quality in CHCs, accounting for interactions among occupational categories, as well as contributions to the volume of services.

We examined trends in telehealth usage over time, as well as the role state telehealth policies play in telehealth use when controlling for population characteristics.

As health workforce shortages become more common in the United States, the use of temporary health care providers has increased. Federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) often experience staffing shortages and barriers to recruitment, but their use of temporary health care providers is not well understood. This brief describes a study that analyzed data from 2013-2017 to investigate trends in the use of temporary health care providers at FQHCs and what factors were associated with their use.

Federal programs such as the National Health Survey Corps (NHSC) are important for providing staffing to community health centers (CHCs). However, the financial impact of NHSC staff on CHCs remains unclear. This article describes a study that analyzed 2013-2017 data from the Uniform Data System and the NHSC administrative database to compare the financial impact of NHSC and non-NHSC clinicians in CHCs to determine whether or not NHSC staff reduces care costs at CHCs.

Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) has been shown to be effective for treating patients suffering from opioid use disorders (OUD), but there is a shortage of providers with Drug Addiction Treatment Act (DATA) waivers to provide such treatment. Designing policies that would assist in the retention of MAT providers who prescribe buprenorphine is dependent upon learning more about this important subset of the workforce. This brief describes a study that utilized panel data to examine what factors are associated with the retention and attrition of providers who prescribe buprenorphine.

Distance learning in social work has proliferated in recent years. It is increasingly promoted as a strategy for diversifying the social work workforce and expanding access to graduate education for individuals in rural and under-served communities. Findings indicate that online and blended education is associated with practice in rural and underserved areas. This article examines the effects of distance learning in social work education.

The growth of nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs), or Advanced Practitioner Clinicians (APCs) in primary care workforce has far exceeded the growth of primary care physicians (PCP) in community health centers (CHCs) over the last decade, yet their productivity varies dramatically across organizations. We ask what organizational characteristics are causing this variation to occur. Understanding the answer to this question will help inform CHC leadership’s approach to optimizing APC productivity.

The National Health Service Corps (NHSC) is a federal program aimed at increasing the number of health professionals in underserved communities. The program’s ability to influence the capacity of community health centers (CHCs) has not yet been investigated. This study examines the role of NHSC clinicians in improving staffing and patient care capacity in primary, dental, and mental health care in CHCs. Using data from federally funded health centers and the NHSC from 2013–2016, this article examines whether NHSC clinicians complement non-NHSC clinicians in CHCs and whether their productivity, measured as visits per staff, is greater than that of non-NHSC clinicians in primary, dental, and mental health care. It helps validate the effectiveness of NHSC loan repayment and scholarship incentives as a recruitment strategy and to inform policies on the impact of NHSC on CHCs’ patient care capacity.

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 and anxiety in rural centers, compared to both their urban counterparts and non-NHSC staff in rural centers. Enhancing behavioral health staffing in rural community health centers could help reduce the urban-rural gap in the availability of behavioral health services, but still more could be done.

Gaps exist between health education curricula and the knowledge, competencies, and experiences needed to understand and address the underlying drivers of healthcare utilization among high-need, high-cost patients. To address this gap, new interprofessional service learning models are emerging to train students in medicine and other health professions to respond to the needs of complex patients through patient-centered, interprofessional approaches.

The Social Mission Metrics Initiative (SMMI) develops a survey instrument that health organizations can use to measure the success of their social mission. Developing such a standardized survey instrument requires that the relative importance of different elements of social mission success are weighted appropriately. This brief describes a study that surveyed hundreds of stakeholders at a variety of health education organizations across the country to explore how faculty and students perceive the relative importance of different aspects of their organizations social mission, examine how priorities are associated with different respondent characteristics, and verify key definitions.

Community college (CC) students are an important port of entry to post secondary education for minority and rural students and those with limited family incomes. Yet, previous studies found that notwithstanding the diversity that CC brings to medical education, CC students face discrimination in the admissions process: CC students had lower acceptance rates to medical school than those with no CC, even after controlling for race/ethnicity, MCAT, and GPA scores. This study explores whether applicants with a CC background contribute to the diversity of matriculants in PA programs and if CC applicants are less likely to be matriculated in PA programs.

The Social Mission Metrics Initiative (SMMI) develops a survey instrument that health organizations can use to measure the success of their social mission. Developing such a standardized survey instrument requires that the relative importance of different elements of social mission success are weighted appropriately. This report describes a study that surveyed hundreds of stakeholders at a variety of health education organizations across the country to explore how faculty and students perceive the relative importance of different aspects of their organizations social mission, examine how priorities are associated with different respondent characteristics, and verify key definitions.

While access to dental care for children enrolled in Medicaid has grown steadily, Medicaid children still face greater access barriers than privately-insured children. It is important to understand factors associated with whether dentists participate in Medicaid, including factors associated with their dental school training. We analysed American Dental Association data about practicing general and pediatric dentists, including data about their dental schools, their current practice characteristics and the states where they practice to identify correlates of accepting Medicaid patients.

Since 2010, the New Hampshire State Office of Rural Health (SORH) has been charged to collect primary care workforce supply and capacity data to inform healthcare access planning and workforce assessment, as well as policy regarding the current and future needs of NH’s primary care workforce. However, data collection was not possible until 2017, when NH passed a law authorizing participating health professions licensing boards to adopt rules requiring licensees to complete the SORH’s workforce survey during the time of license renewal. In this webinar, Danielle Weiss, the Health Professions Data Center Manager, discusses ongoing efforts to implement this new law. She provides a brief overview of the law, what’s working, what’s not working, and next steps for health workforce data collection in the state. Based on her experience, Danielle also offers advice to states contemplating similar legislation.

This tutorial demonstrates how to use ArcGIS to add Zip Code level Medicaid enrollment data to a Primary Care Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA).

This tutorial focuses on how to calculate a population to physician ratio by county in California, how to create a thematic map based on ratio, and how to export the map so it can be used in other applications.

Using Texas as an example, this tutorial demonstrates how to connect HRSA’s data warehouse to ArcGIS and export Primary Care Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) data.

The Massachusetts DSRIP program is one component of Massachusetts’ Section 1115 Medicaid waiver demonstration that supports a transition to Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). Among other initiatives, the DSRIP program provides funding for ACOs, as well as for community-based organizations that provide highly specialized care coordination supports for members with complex needs, and various statewide workforce capacity and development efforts. This webinar provides an overview of the Massachusetts DSRIP program, with a focus on the program’s healthcare workforce development initiatives.

The New York DSRIP program is a Medicaid demonstration that supports restructuring the state’s health care delivery system by promoting community-level collaborations, and has the goal of achieving a 25% reduction in avoidable hospital use for Medicaid patients over 5 years. NY DSRIP funds 25 Performing Provider Systems (PPS) located throughout the state. This webinar provides an overview of the New York DSRIP program and features presentations from two PPSs on urban and rural health workforce strategies, including a registered apprenticeship program for certified nursing assistants and long-term approaches for developing the healthcare pipeline.

In May, 2018, 40 leaders and scholars from universities, delivery organizations, professional associations, advocacy groups, government agencies, and private insurance companies were convened to identify and prioritize recommendations to ensure an adequate workforce to support the care of people with serious illnesses in the community. Summit attendees proposed 16 overarching recommendations, spanning the workforce from home care aides through geriatricians. This webinar outlines the recommendations and places them in the context of recent research on how health care organizations are meeting serious illness care needs and federal policy initiatives.

This webinar featured two health workforce training experts who shared best practice strategies for approaching workforce training program evaluation, navigating evaluation success and challenges, and student training experiences. Their experiences along with viewer feedback will inform development of the Behavioral Health Workforce Research Center's evaluation resources for health workforce training programs across the country.

This tutorial demonstrates the basic concept of geocoding and demonstrates how to geocode provider practice addresses in ArcGIS.

This tutorial demonstrates how to create an address locator in ArcGIS that can be used to geocode addresses located in a particular state.

The Inventory of State Health Workforce Data Collection, 2019 surveys the health workforce supply (e.g., demographic, education, and practice characteristics of health professionals), demand (e.g., vacancies and employer recruitment and retention difficulties), and the education pipeline (e.g., graduation rates and trainee/graduate characteristics). The findings from this survey are used to populate the State Health Workforce Data Collection Inventory.

Many states have conducted behavioral health workforce studies. Here is a catalogue of some of the reports they have done.

This webinar presented the findings from a major recent study of the pediatric dentistry workforce. Speakers described the origins for the study, its methods, and the policy implications of its findings.

A recent study of the pediatric dental workforce described the results of a survey of pediatric dentists and microsimulation modeling to build future supply and demand scenarios. This webinar focuses on the implications of this study for practicing pediatric dentists. A short question and answer session follows the presentation. For an in depth summary of the pediatric dentistry study, see Pediatric Dentistry Workforce Study: Origins, Results, and Policy Implications.

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 a representative sample of the US adult population in order to obtain information on factors contributing to oral health disparities and to describe barriers to utilization of services.

This project sought to identify critical components for integration of services within FQHCs in order to help other providers in their service integration efforts.

This project sought to identify critical components for integration of services within FQHCs in order to help other providers in their service integration efforts.

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 Health Workforce Research Center (OHWRC) at the University at Albany's Center for Health Workforce Studies analysed these PGD training programs. This brief assesses the impacts of these training programs on current practice patterns of 'completers' of these programs and on improving the capacity of dentists to meet the needs of the underserved.

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 Health Workforce Research Center (OHWRC) at the University at Albany's Center for Health Workforce Studies analysed these PGD training programs. This report assesses the impacts of these training programs on current practice patterns of 'completers' of these programs and on improving the capacity of dentists to meet the needs of the underserved.

Childhood caries is a major oral and general health problem, particularly in certain populations. In this study, the authors aimed to evaluate the adequacy of the supply of pediatric dentists.

This study, completed by the Oral Health Workforce Research Center in cooperation with the American Dental Association (ADA), represents a unique opportunity to use the ADA Masterfile and Survey of Dental Practice (SDP) to describe gender diversity and to consider the overall impact for the future of the oral health workforce.

For this, project, OHWRC collaborated with the American Dental Association (ADA) in order to access and analyze its Masterfile and Survey of Dental Practice (SDP) data. This project also included an extensive literature review. The goal of the study was to understand differences in practice characteristics by gender and to anticipate changes in the professional workforce that might affect the availability of dental services in underserved areas.

Legislators in each state construct policies to define legal scope of practice (SOP) for dental hygienists in their state. These policies create variation in the tasks Dental Hygienists (DH) in different states are legally allowed to perform, which ultimately impacts access to oral healthcare services. The Oral Health Workforce Research Center developed an infographic that depicts state-level variation in DH SOP. This article discusses the infographic tool to help oral health advocacy groups, policy makers, and other stakeholders better understand the issues which impact access to care.

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 a representative sample of the US adult population in order to obtain information on factors contributing to oral health disparities and to describe barriers to utilization of services.

This audio clip describes the project looking at barriers and facilitators to access to oral health services.

This audio clip describes the project looking at demographic changes within the dental profession, especially the gender distribution, are affecting dental practice characteristics and practice locations.

In California Medicaid home-and-community-based services (HCBS), recipients' family members receive payment as home care aides (HCAs). We analyzed data on first-time HCBS recipients to examine factors associated with the likelihood of switching HCAs within the first year of services.

There are insufficient numbers of practicing geriatricians to meet the current demand for their services, and the shortage is projected to worsen in the coming decades as the number of older Americans rapidly increases. Understanding how to best leverage geriatricians as members of an overall care team is critical. This report is the second component of a 2-stage project examining current and emerging roles of geriatricians. The first report used existing scholarly work to provide a comprehensive analysis of the current landscape. This report focuses on information solicited from field experts in geriatrics as to how geriatrician roles are evolving as healthcare systems and organizations reorganize care in response to a changing environment.

Little is known about how technological advances will affect the size, skills, and training needs of the workforce required to care for aging Americans. This report addresses this knowledge gap with a scan of available technologies currently or soon to be in use for and by consumers and/or long-term care (LTC) workers; it also assesses which of these may facilitate, replace, or enhance recruitment, training, and retention of the LTC workforce.

Nursing homes (NHs) are increasingly recognized as critical components of the long-term care continuum. Acute care systems have come to recognize the need for high-quality and easily accessible post-acute and long-term care avenues, a niche NHs have embraced over the past several years. Indeed, post-acute patients receiving NH rehabilitation account for more than 2.2 million Medicare-covered stays across 15,000 facilities. The quality of care in NHs remains inconsistent and, in many respects, suboptimal. Although NH quality is dependent on a number of workforce factors, directors of nursing (DONs) and their relationships with staff, including attending physicians, are likely an important part of the equation.

This brief aims to understand the organizational settings and roles of peer providers in the behavioral health workforce and to build a profile of peer support specialists using statutes, administrative codes, state Medicaid plans, and national survey data.

This report aims to understand the organizational settings and roles of peer providers in the behavioral health workforce and to build a profile of peer support specialists using statutes, administrative codes, state Medicaid plans, and national survey data.

This brief explores the ways in which organizational culture and provider perceptions and attitudes affect access to MAT and other SUD treatment, how Medicaid and other insurance coverage impact access to MAT and other SUD treatment, and state-specific initiatives in place to address the opioid epidemic and other SUDs.

Accessing evidence-based treatment is critical to help people with SUDs improve health outcomes and achieve long-term recovery. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from State Opioid Treatment Authorities, Single State Agencies, and behavioral health providers across the country to better understand systemic, social, and economic factors that impact access to medication-assisted treatment and other SUD treatment. Data related to organizational culture, provider perceptions and attitudes, access to Medicaid and other insurance coverage, and state-specific initiatives to address the opioid epidemic were collected, analyzed, and discussed.

Results from the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health show a gap between the US population in need of behavioral health and addiction treatment services and those who actually receive them. Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) were created in response to this survey, and expanded access to community-based treatment for those in need. They provide a range of addiction and mental health services, while meeting additional requirements related to behavioral health workforce shortages and maldistribution, governance, data and quality reporting, and more. This report examines how CCBHCs meet the “quadruple aim” in behavioral health care.