Axios Live: Utah's health worker shortage is more than a numbers problem
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CommonSpirit Health director of operations Crystal Albrecht at Axios' private roundtable. Photo: Melissa Majchrzak for Axios
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's health care workforce shortage reflects gaps in pay, clinical training and access to career pathways, local leaders said at an Axios roundtable.
Why it matters: As the post-COVID pandemic health care hiring boom slows down, shortages are disrupting provider capacity and creating more barriers in educating young health care workers.
Axios' Erin Alberty and Adriel Bettelheim moderated the roundtable. The Sept. 23 event was sponsored by Covista and Chamberlain University.
5 big takeaways from the conversation:
- Careers in health care feel "out of reach for a lot of people," said Proxima Careers COO Cameron Wright. "There is a need to create the vision of attainability."
- The large pool of low-paying health care jobs in Utah stems from a lack of unions and state support structures, said Association for Utah Community Health medical director Sarah Woolsey. "We can recruit lots of young people … [and] put them into those jobs, and they may not stay because it's not going to be a livable wage over time."
- Utah's major Medicaid shortfall could "steal resources that could otherwise be used to address critical shortages," said Evan Done, advocacy and public policy director at Utah Support Advocates for Recovery Awareness.
- High-quality job training is hindered by the wider workforce shortage, said CommonSpirit Health's director of operations Crystal Albrecht. "We don't have an adequate supply of experienced nurses to train those new nurses."
- Data investments are needed to study the state's health care employees, said Teresa Garrett, Utah Health Workforce Advisory Council Legislative Review Committee chair and co-lead of the Utah Action Coalition. "There's a lot that we don't know about what's going on in the health care workforce," she said.
Content from the sponsor's remarks:
During opening remarks, Chamberlain University president Amelia Manning said its new Utah campus is fortifying its nursing program to account for pressures created by shortages.
- "Chronic understaffing and challenges that nurses face at the bedside is really a critical part of what we need to be helping to prepare nurses for," Manning said.
