The Colorado Health Professions Workforce Summit was held on October 22, 2009 and brought together 150 healthcare providers, educators, policymakers, and other stakeholders to address the shortage of healthcare providers in Colorado. 2008’s Workforce Summit focused on primary care providers and developing policy recommendations to address the severe shortage, and this year’s event built on that momentum.
In 2009, the Colorado Health Professions Workforce Policy Collaborative used the recommendations formulated at the first event to create a potential policy agenda, and this year’s Summit engaged attendees in refining it. The second major outcome was the formulation of policy recommendations addressing the shortage of non-primary care healthcare providers.
Polling technology allowed attendees to actively participate in the proceedings. The polling results assisted the Collaborative in preparing their final draft of the policy agenda which was presented to the Governor and his cabinet. The immediate policy interventions they recommended were:
- Collect key data through the State’s existing professional licensing and certification processes
- Enact policies to increase the numbers of physician assistants and advanced practice nurses in primary care
- Increase public funding for health professions education programs
- Support policies to increase number of clinical experiences and residencies
Ultimately, the Summit demonstrated that there is strong consensus on ways to move forward and to address Colorado’s health professions workforce crisis. “The workforce shortage is the most critical issue for our rural constituents, and this Summit was an important opportunity to build on the momentum of last year’s event to ensure we real progress is made,” said Lou Ann Wilroy, CEO of CRHC.
The Colorado Rural Health Center, The Colorado Trust, and the Colorado Community Health Network came together to host the event. Many thanks to our other event sponsors, including The Colorado Health Foundation, Caring for Colorado, the Colorado Hospital Association, the Colorado Community Health Network, the Colorado Workforce Development Council, the Colorado Department of Labor & Employment, Arapahoe/Douglas Works!, and Kaiser Permanente.
To access materials and presentations from this event, please visit the Past Events webpage of the CRHC website.
