The commonwealth of Virginia is confronting two big challenges with a common solution.
We need more health care professionals to care for a growing and aging population, and we need more family-sustaining career opportunities that lift Virginians into the middle class.
The solution to both is a reimagined approach to health care workforce development that trains and prepares the next generation of health care professionals while creating the kind of well-paying careers that provide stability for families and entire communities.
At Claude Moore Opportunities, where I recently joined the board of directors, we are reimagining health care workforce development not as a simple pipeline where a worker moves from Point A to Point B, but as a highway with on and off ramps that create flexible opportunities for advancement and work throughout a person’s career.
My own family’s story is a testament to the power of a health care career in helping more Virginians live healthy lives and achieve the American dream.
I am the proud daughter of Filipino immigrants who moved to Hampton Roads to pursue a better life for their children.
My mother and I were fortunate to pursue careers as physicians, operating a family medicine practice in Hampton Roads for 16 years with my father as our office manager.
We hired dozens of health care professionals, many at the beginning of their careers, and saw how a health care career can provide stability and opportunity for families in Hampton Roads.
As I have continued along my own health care highway into education, health care administration and community health, I have watched the demand for health care workers far outpace the supply, and the problem is only getting worse.
Here in Hampton Roads, the Old Dominion University Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy projects that our region will face a shortfall of 139 new nurses every year until 2031.
The George Mason University Center for Health Workforce projects that Virginia will face similar shortfalls in other critical health care fields such as lab techs, pharmacy techs and behavioral health counselors.
This current and looming health care workforce shortage could have significant repercussions for the well-being of our citizens and for Virginia’s economy. No single government agency, university, nonprofit or hospital system can solve this problem alone. The solution will require coordination, cooperation, trust and resources.
Fortunately, there is a growing coalition of educational enterprises, public sector, private sector and nonprofit partners such as Claude Moore Opportunities working together to get ahead of this challenge.
The key to success will be the embrace of an employer-engaged, community-coordinated health care workforce development model with multiple points of entry and exit for workers at any stage of their career.
To support this important work, Claude Moore is serving as a convener of and investor in regional, multidisciplinary partnerships, including in Hampton Roads, which bring together major employers, academic institutions and workforce development professionals to build a larger, more skilled, better credentialed health care workforce.
As we expand our efforts statewide, I am proud to add the voice and experience of Hampton Roads to this exciting new venture. For example, I believe the health care highway model offers exciting opportunities to reexamine the connections between military and civilian medical training to help our region’s veterans and military families pursue careers in health care.
Right now, Virginia has a rare opportunity to address a known challenge before it becomes a crisis. If we tackle this challenge in a cooperative, coordinated way, we can make Hampton Roads and the entire commonwealth of Virginia a healthier, more prosperous place to call home.
Cynthia Romero, M.D. is a Hampton Roads native who serves on the board of directors of Claude Moore Opportunities, a Virginia health care workforce non-profit. She previously served as Virginia Health Commissioner and in statewide and regional leadership roles for hospital systems, health care associations and nonprofit organizations. Email her at romerocc@odu.edu.
