State Releases New Report at Healthcare Workforce Transformation Summit

Published on Friday, June 16, 2017

Outlines broad workforce goals for strengthening public health

CRANSTON, R.I. –The RI Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) hosted the Healthcare Workforce Transformation Summit today at the Crowne Plaza, while concurrently announcing the release of its report on Rhode Island’s healthcare workforce.This report, Healthcare Workforce Transformation—Preparing the Workforce for a Healthy Rhode Island (HWT), was produced by the EOHHS and Jobs for the Future in partnership with the Rhode Island State Innovation Model (SIM) Test Grant, to forward the State’s healthcare transformation efforts.

The summit featured presentations and workshops on a variety of topics related to healthcare workforce development, providing an opportunity to build upon the collective process that produced the HWT to address the priorities and strategies recommended in the report.The keynote speaker, Erin Fraher, Director of the Carolina Center for Health Workforce Research and Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, delivered an address on workforce planning in a rapidly changing healthcare system.

“The HWT summit and report are excellent starting points for helping us shape a common vision for the jobs, skills and training that we will need in the healthcare workforce of the future,” said Patrick Tigue, Rhode Island’s Medicaid Director.“I want to thank our many partners who participated in the workgroupsand collaborated on the development of this report. We are building upon the success of reinventing Medicaid; together, we are committed to preserving access and quality of care, and moving forward to reform our healthcare system to improve health outcomes.”

The HWT report and two additional documents-Appendices on Rhode Island’s Healthcare Professionsand Occupations Critical to Healthcare Workforce Transformation-outline Rhode Island’s current healthcare workforce landscape and recommend the followingthree state-wide workforce priorities: (1) build healthcare career pathways to develop skills that matter for jobs that pay, (2) expand home and community-based care capacity, and (3) teach core concepts of health system and practice transformation.

The report incorporates input from over 250 healthcare partners-along with data, research, and best practices, and was released in anticipation of the Healthcare Workforce Transformation Summit, with the summit beginning the collaborative process of identifying and prioritizing key healthcare workforce transformation strategies for Rhode Island.

For a copy of the Healthcare Workforce Transformation Report, Appendices, and Compendium of Occupations, see the Healthcare Workforce Transformationpage on the EOHHS website.

CONTACT:

Meghan Connelly, (401) 318-5727

meghan.connelly@dea.ri.gov