Public universities propose health care initiative

The presidents of Missouri State University and the University of Missouri have announced a statewide cooperative venture between the state’s public two-year and four-year higher education institutions.

The proposal, dubbed Prepare to Care, asks for $38 million in state appropriations, which would be used by the schools toward their goal of increasing health program graduate numbers by 20 percent.

Prepare to Care now awaits a recommendation from Gov. Matt Blunt to the Missouri General Assembly, so that the proposal would be considered during the legislative session that begins Jan. 9.

Blunt spokeswoman Jessica Robinson said that while the governor has met with several of the parties involved in the proposal, including MU Interim President Gordon Lamb, Blunt has not made an official decision about his recommendation.

A pressing need

Local education officials say the need for additional training is critical.

“There are national shortages of health care professionals in almost every category,” MSU President Michael Nietzel told Springfield Business Journal via e-mail. “In the case of the rural Midwest, the shortages are even more profound, especially in nursing, pharmacy and primary care.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Bureau of Health Professionals said in a 2002 study that 90 percent of states report nursing shortages as a “major concern,” while 70 percent of states cited pharmacist shortages, and more than half worry about finding enough certified nurse aides, home health aides, dentists and radiology technicians.

The January 2007 issue of health industry journal Health Affairs estimated a national shortage of 340,000 registered nurses by 2020, more than double the current shortage of about 150,000, due to the combination of retiring nurses and an aging population. Missouri alone has nearly 5,000 nursing openings, a number that is expected to more than triple by 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

CoxHealth, for example, has about 125 openings for nurses in its health system.

“It’s going to continue to grow,” said John Hursh, CoxHealth’s director of human resources. “It’s going to be all the allied health sciences, and we’re going to be in a real crisis if we don’t look ahead, plan ahead, and really expand the capacity of our schools to gear up for that.”

St. John’s Health System faces the same problem; the system has more than 100 nursing openings.

Jim Brookhart, St. John’s chief human resources officer, said the industry faces a “perfect storm” of large-scale retirement and growing need for health services combined with lagging numbers of students entering the work force.

“We applaud and endorse any initiative that is designed to increase the number of health care professionals,” Brookhart said. “There clearly is a need to do that – and to begin to do that now, before we’re in full crisis mode.”

Local efforts

Area public colleges already are working to meet the growing need for health care workers.

At MSU, there are 600 students enrolled in health programs, which include nursing, physician’s assistants, physical therapy and communication disorders.

If the initiative is approved, Nietzel said MSU would receive about $2.1 million over two years, which would be used to add faculty and staff, renovate lab facilities and provide some financial aid to health students.

“In addition, Missouri State seeks to partner with (University of Missouri-Kansas City) to bring the doctor of pharmacy degree program to Springfield,” Nietzel added.

Ozarks Technical Community College has 419 students in its allied health program, which trains students for numerous fields including licensed practical nursing, dental hygiene, dental assisting, and physical and occupational therapy.

OTC President Hal Higdon said the agreement would bring $242,000 to the school in its first year.

“The whole idea is to create more health professionals,” Higdon said. “At the four-year level, it could be people with a bachelor’s degree in nursing all the way to the University of Missouri’s medical doctor program. On the community college level, we’re talking about our allied health programs.”

He said the additional money would allow the school to add 10 more students to the registered nursing program OTC will start in fall 2008, funded through existing school money.

“For every 10 (nursing) students, you have to have a full-time faculty member,” Higdon said.

“This money would allow us to add 10 more students than we had anticipated next year.”

OTC already is implementing other methods to increase its number of health care students. The school in October announced a partnership with MSU and private institution Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar that allows OTC Associate of Science in Nursing students to move directly into the Bachelor of Science in Nursing programs at either university. OTC will offer the ASN program for the first time in fall 2008.

CoxHealth’s Hursh said any additional students in the field will help.

“The health programs are expensive to fund, but if you don’t fund them, there’s going to be an even greater expense,” he said. “You’ll have health needs of a community that can’t be met, and labor prices will go through the ceiling because you can’t staff the hospital or the local pharmacy.

“Anything at this point that helps us expand the number of professionals in health care is welcome news.”