The Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF), with the National Association of Workforce Boards (NAWB), is hosting a special gathering of experts and thought leaders for a provocative one-day healthcare workforce summit.
This summit will focus on the major trends in the healthcare market and derive meaningful strategies to drive future research and action agendas among workforce investment boards across the nation and for Pittsburgh’s burgeoning healthcare sector.
The summit will be held Thursday, October 18, 2012, in JHF’s new QIT Training Center, on the 26th floor of Centre City Tower.
With passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the HITECH Act (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health), it is expected that health insurance coverage will expand to an additional to 32 million people — 16 million to the nation’s Medicaid program alone — and dramatically tax an already strained health system, resulting in a significant shortage of skilled workers. In addition, trained healthcare professionals will need to adapt to rapidly changing technology.
Preparing a workforce for this environment will require new thinking and new approaches to workforce development. The panel of experts will address these fundamental issues facing the healthcare system including:
· The disconnected and insufficient data needed to shape an efficient healthcare workforce;
· The inadequate pipeline of healthcare workers and primary care physicians prepared to meet the growing demand;
· The evolving technical and other critical skills the healthcare workforce will need to be efficient and effective providers.
Karen Wolk Feinstein, PhD, President and CEO of JHF explained, “When we formed our Health Careers Future unit in 2002, the Foundation took another step to advance quality and contain waste in health care. It goes beyond aligning supply with demand. Workers must be trained to deliver care that is as perfect and evidence-based as possible, as efficiently as possible.”
Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs) have historically played a pivotal role in preparing the healthcare labor market to respond to impending shortages and adapt to demographic and policy shifts. “NAWB wants to engage the country’s leading experts to identify future workforce demands in light of recent research and developing economic and political trends. The outcomes of this summit will drive the agenda and recommendations for our national conference in Washington, DC,” said Ronald D. Painter, CEO of the NAWB, “I worked closely with the Jewish Healthcare Foundation and Health Careers Futures when I ran the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board in Pittsburgh. They have consistently been leaders in the field and that’s why I chose to hold the summit in Pittsburgh.”
Ultimately, workforce investment boards across the nation will benefit as the result of this summit; however, the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board (TRWIB), which leads the public workforce development system for Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, will serve as ground zero for these recommendations and action steps.
About the Jewish Healthcare Foundation
JHF, together with its supporting organizations, the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI) and Health Careers Futures (HCF), is a nationally and internationally recognized leader in healthcare quality improvement. Funded by public and private sources, JHF and its partners have developed and managed programs, conducted research, and provided training to improve the provision and quality of healthcare services, education, research, training and workforce development for more than 20 years.
For more information, visit www.jhf.org.
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