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HEALTHFORCE KENTUCKY AS A CHANGE AGENT FOR KENTUCKY

by Bart Darrell

Owensboro, KY (02/24/2025) — Sent on behalf of HealthForce Kentucky for Barton Darrell

Kentucky, like the rest of the United States, is facing a crisis of healthcare professional shortages within virtually every specialty and skill. This crisis was predicted. the crisis has arrived. The shortages existed prior to the advent of Covid-19, but the pandemic accelerated the crisis as healthcare workers left their professions in large numbers during the height of the pandemic, and after it subsided, due to burnout and exhaustion.

When HealthForce Kentucky was first dreamed of in 2022, the Kentucky Hospital Association's annual "Workforce Survey" reported that Kentucky had nearly thirteen thousand (13,000) healthcare professional position vacancies in hospitals alone. There was a twenty percent (20%) vacancy rate among licensed practical nurses, a nineteen percent (19%) vacancy rate among registered nurses, and similar and/or varying shortages in every other healthcare profession. These numbers do not include the similar shortages in healthcare clinics, primary care offices, elder living facilities, and other healthcare providers. These shortages will only increase in the years ahead without charting a new course.

Kentucky has chosen not to wait for others to work for solutions. Kentucky has taken the lead with the creation of, and the investment in, HealthForce Kentucky. With great insight and vision, a group of Midwest Kentucky leaders in healthcare, education, and the state legislature, created HealthForce Kentucky as an innovative way to attack this healthcare professional shortage in our region, which can become a model for Kentucky and beyond.

HealthForce Kentucky is a true collaboration consisting of nine colleges and universities (University of Louisville, Kentucky Wesleyan College, Western Kentucky University, Brescia University, along with the community colleges in Owensboro, Henderson, Elizabethtown, Madisonville, and Hopkinsville), nearly twenty K-12 school districts, and healthcare facilities/systems throughout the region. The objectives are to create renewed and greater interest in healthcare careers; greater access to high technology healthcare education and training; increased sharing of healthcare education programs among postsecondary partners, widen the current healthcare professional pathways that currently exist in our education partners; and establish new healthcare career pathways as the market demands. In just more than a year of operation, there has been a seventeen percent (17%) increase in applications for healthcare programs in the five community colleges alone. Programs among our community colleges have been expanded to other campuses without incurring the cost of building new and duplicative programs. New programs have been created and or expanded across the region to meet the demand for more healthcare talent.

While a thirty-five thousand square feet high technology healthcare innovation simulation center is currently being constructed in Owensboro to serve the region (the building being renovated made possible by the visionary commitment of Owensboro Health, Kentucky's largest employer west of Louisville) HealthForce Kentucky has already built two mobile simulation laboratories "(HealthForce 1" and "HealthForce 2") which have been serving our healthcare education and training partners for over a year. After the innovation center is completed, HealthForce 1 and 2 will primarily serve our more rural areas, where people may not have convenient access to Owensboro. With technology currently available, there is no reason why people of all ages, in the smallest of Kentucky towns should not have access to the same type education as is available in our larger communities. No state, Kentucky included, can afford to miss developing its talent, no matter where it is found. We have already seen more than twelve thousand persons have educational experiences in the two mobile laboratories and they have traveled over twelve thousand Kentucky miles in the process.

HealthForce Kentucky provides students, of every age, with high technology healthcare training tools second to none. The opportunities for our talented students will be extraordinary. Our region and, consequently, the entire state, will benefit through improved access to even higher quality healthcare education and training.

The talent is here in Kentucky. The will is here in Kentucky. The long-term commitment MUST be here in Kentucky.

The mission of the HealthForce Kentucky collaborative is also larger than "just" healthcare. It is also an educational and economic development engine. Curious minds best meet the world's greatest challenges. HealthForce Kentucky helps create curiosity and creativity. Even those who experience HealthForce Kentucky and then decide a healthcare career is not for them, will be challenged to think of what is possible for them as a lifelong learner. No community, region, or state will prosper without confronting this healthcare professional crisis and establishing a path toward its resolution.

The best economic developers found anywhere are destined to fail in their efforts to attract stable and high paying jobs and careers if the areas they serve do not provide its residents access to quality education and quality healthcare. Some of the most secure and highest paying jobs in every community are healthcare jobs. When those positions are filled the average and median incomes in both rise, spending power increases, and the fiscal health and overall community vibrancy improves.

HealthForce Kentucky is evidence of Kentucky's commitment to better healthcare, jobs, and a better way of life for Kentuckians. It is a tremendous example of what can happen when education, government, and the private sector work and invest together and consider problems as not only solvable, but also as opportunities to improve our ability to compete in an ever more global market place.

HealthForce Kentucky is just getting started. Its greatest impact is coming and will be of long-term benefit, so long as we all stay committed with our energies, talents, and financial investments. Our wonderful Commonwealth will then be an even more attractive place for people to live and work, resulting in the healthiest type of community growth.

Again, the prediction of the healthcare professional crisis has been realized. We have no logical choice but to confront it and solve it. With talent comes obligation. Kentucky has the talent to solve this crisis and, therefore, has the obligation to stay the course on which it has courageously, confidently, and innovatively embarked.

Barton D. Darrell, Chancellor

HealthForce Kentucky

270-779-4149 (cell)

270-691-7818 (office)

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