A Road Map to Strengthening California’s Healthcare Workforce Developed by Health Net

by Health Net, LLC

The healthcare industry is facing a projected workforce shortage of half a million people over the next few years. At Health Net, our providers throughout the state know firsthand the challenges facing the healthcare workforce and how they impact their businesses and patients.

This prompted Health Net to recently release its Workforce Development Key Findings Report, which provides a comprehensive approach to addressing California's healthcare workforce shortage — especially as it relates to the state's expanding Medi-Cal population. Through its investment of nearly $4 million in workforce development initiatives amongst 14 statewide grant partners, Health Net was able to identify shared challenge areas and distill best practices to develop a list of targeted recommendations and strategies that can help to overcome workforce challenges.

The report outlines three critical focus areas:

• The identification of new talent pools.
• The need to provide upward mobility at all levels.
• The importance of cultural competency training and recruitment.

By using grants to focus on these three factors, grantees were able to increase clinic capacity and patient satisfaction, improve workforce retention, and begin to develop a more representative workforce that has helped to improve patient outcomes and address existing inequities.

"California's expanding Medi-Cal patient population and continued healthcare workforce shortages create a twin set of challenges that must be met head-on in order to ensure our state's most vulnerable patients receive the care they need – and Health Net is working to do just that," said Brian Ternan, President and CEO of Health Net of California and California Health and Wellness. "By investing in statewide partnerships, education programs and programmatic funding initiatives, Health Net is leading efforts to reverse the workforce shortage trend in California by helping to build a stronger pipeline of qualified professionals to serve our most vulnerable patients."

Based on key findings, Health Net identified the following recommendations and strategies to overcome current workforce challenges:

• Recruitment-Centered Recommendations: Center recruitment opportunities of healthcare professionals in underserved markets of the state and focus efforts into previously untapped pools.
• Investment Strategies: Fund collaborative partnerships between providers, community-based organizations, educational institutions and others to convene, share and establish new best practices.
• Education & Training Professionals: Develop training programs geared towards all populations and provide clear career ladders and upward mobility opportunities to encourage retention and increase satisfaction of both professionals and patients.

At Health Net, we believe being engaged in our communities enables us to better care for people’s health. As one of the largest and most experienced health plans in the state, we work hard to cultivate thoughtful partnerships that align with our mission and goals to improve the health of our community one person at a time. Forty years later, we remain steadfast in our commitment to serve as both as a resource to the state and an active member of the communities where we operate. This initiative is part of our investment of more than $40 million dedicated to Bridge the Divide in access, equity and quality of care.