, Employment & Training Administration (ETA)

Maryland Healthcare Summit

Thursday, August 28, 2003
10:15 am - 10:45 am
Loews Hotel
Annapolis, MD

Introduction

Good morning. Thank you for inviting me to address the Maryland Health Care Summit. I would especially like to thank Secretary Jim Fielder and Bill Robertson for hosting this event and for their continuing commitment to ensuring the public workforce investment system contributes to the development of the 21st century workforce.

The reason we're here today is that our nation's health care system is facing a major crisis. This $600 billion industry is in desperate need of skilled workers. There are 115,000 immediate job vacancies in the health services. And that is only the beginning of the problem.

Between now and 2010, the health care industry will add over 1 million new jobs.

Over that same time period, 4 key health care occupations will grow by over 50%.

Overall, 9 out of the 20 fastest growing occupations are concentrated in health services.

When you add up the numbers, over 13% of all new jobs created by our economy will be concentrated in the health care field.

We are not just talking about doctors here either. Most jobs in health care require less than 4 years of college education. Many professionals require an associate's degree. In fact, 56 percent of the workers in nursing and personal care facilities have a high school diploma or less, as do 25 percent of the workers in hospitals.

How did the health care industry reach such a crisis? If you line up the demographics of our population as the baby boomers age, with increasing patient demands, and a shrinking influx of health care professionals, you can see the collision course. This immediate workforce crisis must be addressed if Americans are to continue receiving the world class health care services they have come to expect. Human capital is the health care industry's Number 1 asset and human capital should be your Number 1 priority. The industry requires an immediate pool of qualified, skilled workers to fill these vacancies and a steady stream of workers to fill the expected job growth.

Meeting this short-term workforce need is only part of the challenge. Over the next 50 years, the number of people requiring long term care will more than double to over 27 million. That means we will need up to 7 million health care workers by then to service just long-term care needs. Filling these needs will require a comprehensive strategy to continuously attract and train workers over a generation or more.

Just last month, the Department of Labor hosted a conference called Workforce Innovations and it was attended by more than 2000 of the nation's leading workforce industry executive, professionals, and educators. The theme of the conference was "creating a demand driven system" - ensuring the public workforce investment system understands where the future job growth is going to be and develops strategies with business and industry, education and economic development to build the skilled workforce needed to meet that demand.

At that conference, we conducted a super-session on the health care industry. The panel focused on the workforce issues facing the health care industry and included leaders from the workforce and education systems as well as the health care industry.

There were two major themes that came from the session. The first was described by Dr. Charles Roadman, President and CEO of the American Health Care Association, as the intersection of globalization and federalism. What he meant by that is that the crisis facing the health care industry requires a vision and strategy developed at the national-even international-level of where we want to go and how we are going to get there. However, the implementation of this strategy must be accomplished at the regional and local levels to guarantee the maximum amount of flexibility to respond to each area's unique needs and concerns.

The second theme repeated over and over by the panelists, was the absolute need for leadership in addressing the workforce crisis. With so many different systems and organizations contributing to the preparation of the workforce, someone needs to coordinate their actions and see to it that everyone is working toward a common goal.

I'm here to tell you that President Bush and his Administration are acutely aware of the issues surrounding our health care workforce and that is why we launched a nationwide initiative to address these critical worker issues. It is called the High Growth Job Training Initiative, and it specifically highlights health care as an area of focus. It is through this initiative that we are working to develop the national vision and strategy for health care's workforce needs.

The process for developing the national strategy is divided into three phases: Information Gathering, Analysis and Planning, and Implementation.

The Information Gathering phase is based on listening to industry experts and collecting critical information from the industry itself on its health care workforce needs.

One of the ways that we are accomplishing this is through Executive Forums. In the last few months, we have had Executive Forums with the American Hospital Association, the National Rural Health Association, the American Health Care Association, and the American Society of Health Care Human Resources Administrators. These forums provide an opportunity for us to hear directly from the business leaders in the health care field-about their workforce needs and hear recommendations on how to address these needs.

Among the key challenges facing the industry is a faculty shortage in many health fields like nursing, pharmacy, geriatrics and dental hygiene. We are seeing some schools shut down some of their health care education programs even when they have a waiting list of students to enroll - just because they cannot find the faculty to fill the positions.

Let me assure you that health care faculty issues are very high on the President's agenda. The first time I heard the issue raised to him was in June at his Jobs and Growth event at a community college in northern Virginia. Next, the President was asked about this shortage at a recent news conference, and then again a couple weeks ago he raised the issue when he met with his economic team at his ranch in Crawford. We are looking for creative ways to resolve this shortage and we need your ideas.

The second phase of our strategy development involves analyzing the information that we have collected and developing a plan of action. This fall, DOL is going to host three regional forums with workforce system executives, education leaders, and experts from the health care industry who are already modeling innovative workforce programs. These forums will be designed to accomplish three things:

First, the participants will review the data that we have collected over the past six months and validate our findings. Before we make any strategic decisions or commit substantial funds, we want to be sure that we are focusing on the right areas.
Second, when needed, we will give the participants a crash course in the workforce investment system. For them to help us design a strategic plan, they have to understand the services we provide and the resources that we have available.
Finally, we will together identify solutions to pursue.

Then, ETA will financially support, test, and implement model solutions, highlighting how the workforce system can be a catalyst for meeting the health care industry's workforce needs. We will work to ensure the $15 billion taxpayers invest in the public workforce system will be used in the most efficient and effective way possible to build the workforce needed for the health care industry and our nation's other growing industries such as biotechnology, information technology, and geospatial. Existing programs that are not effective will be revamped or eliminated and when absolutely necessary, new programs will be created to address the health care worker shortage.

While this national strategy is being developed, we are laying the groundwork to ensure its success.

To lead this effort, I have created a Business Relations Group within the Employment and Training Administration. It is their mission to prepare the public workforce system to serve businesses and to connect businesses with the system. I am proud to say that they are making great strides.

The Business Relations Group is working with leading health care providers, educators, progressive workforce boards, and One-Stops to invest in some very exciting initiatives that we believe could prove to be models for components of our national strategy.

HTV - Just two weeks ago, we announced a second grant to Hospitality Television of Louisville, Kentucky for a multi-state project known as School At Work. The project is designed to train entry-level health care workers in skills needed for upward mobility and increased earnings. This $2 million grant will give motivated, low-wage workers the skills they need to progress in promising health care careers.

I want to congratulate the 5 local area hospitals - Anne Arundel Medical Center, Mt. Washington Pediatric, St. Agnes, University, and University Specialty on the great results that they achieved in the first phase of this program. Job advancement has been achieved by 43% of School At Work graduates and 47% of them have enrolled in continuing education. This is a remarkable result and the best of any of the 4 states that participated in the program!

I'm also happy to hear that your state and local workforce agencies are talking with School at Work about how to expand the number of Maryland hospitals in the second phase of the program. ETA is proud to be a catalyst bringing new approaches like School at Work to the forefront. But for new ideas to be sustainable over the long-term, it will take these kinds of local partnerships with employers and the public workforce system.

HCA - In May of last year, we formed a relationship with Hospital Corporation of America to support the creation of a scholarship program to train and employ individuals in health care careers. HCA put $5 million on the table and we matched it. Then in October of last year, HCA added an additional $5 million to expand the scholarship program to 11 additional areas.

Here is how the program works: The training partnership targets underemployed and unemployed individuals. HCA-qualified candidates are given a scholarship in the form of a forgivable loan to study for one to two years. In return, trainees make a commitment to obtain employment with an HCA facility at the completion of their training. Scholarship recipients work for HCA for a period of time equal to the length of their training. Our funds augment HCA's scholarship funds by providing additional outreach, assessment and support services to participants. HCA provides extensive nurse retention and professional development programs to encourage scholarship recipients to remain employed with HCA, or at least within the health care field.

CAEL - We have also developed a partnership with the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL). CAEL is a non-profit organization committed to providing better access to education for adults, through partnerships with business, government, labor, and higher education. Through our grant to them of nearly $2 million, they are working to address the national nursing and health care worker shortage through a career ladder program focused on increasing the number of CNAs, LPNs, and RNs at five demonstration sites throughout the country.

CAEL will address the worker shortage by developing CNA and LPN apprenticeship training programs for both incumbent and prospective healthcare workers. It is also providing current LPNs with an expedited pathway to careers as RNs using an on-line university and community college clinical courses, to accelerate training, advancement and credentialing.

These are all examples of how a "demand-driven" workforce system can more efficiently serve the workforce needs of business, while also effectively helping workers find good jobs at good wages. Creating a demand-driven system means listening to business about what their workforce needs are and responding accordingly. This is critically important if we are to leave "no worker behind."

These initiatives are very exciting, but they are only pieces of a much larger puzzle that we have to fit together. We need to develop the pipeline of young people into health care careers. This means more information at an earlier age. Workers still need to learn the skills needed to succeed in health care. That is why we are creating partnerships with community and technical colleges to provide the appropriate skills training. By improving and updating course curriculum to align with skill needs, schools benefit by being more relevant and workers benefit by acquiring skills that are in demand.

This work has helped us recognize that workforce development is not separate from, but an integral part of, economic development. It is the combined strength of education, employment, and economic development that fuels our nation's economy. At the Department of Labor, we call this the Power of e3.

The President's High-Growth Job Training Initiative seeks to create these partnerships with educators, employers and the public workforce system where all three will work collaboratively to meet today's workforce needs. It is our hope that the High-Growth Job Training Initiative will yield the following outcomes:

First, targeted investment of workforce development resources and support for private and public sector partnerships to ensure the development of workers' skills in demand occupations based on industry needs.
Second, increased integration of community college efforts with business and the public workforce system.
And third, increased opportunities for employers to use apprenticeship training and incumbent worker training as a skills development methodology, to ensure a pipeline of skilled workers.

These outcomes combine to provide workers with paths to career enhancing opportunities in high-growth occupations.

We have provided handouts for you that further outline the ETA Business Relations Group and the High-Growth Job Training Initiative as well as the One-Stop Career Centers and the Workforce Investment System.

Closing

Your participation in this health care initiative is critical to our success in addressing these urgent health care needs. We need the cooperation of leaders like you.

This effort will succeed only if we create and foster effective partnerships with employers. Success will also depend upon effective business to business partnerships across the health services sector.

I want you to know that I recognize the challenges ahead.

President Bush has called upon the federal government to find new and innovative ways to create career opportunities for job seekers, as well as to increase productivity and prosperity for America's businesses.

By working together, using the power of employment, education and economic development partnerships, we can meet today's and tomorrow's challenges by developing a skilled American workforce to meet the needs of the 21st century economy.

Thank you.