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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Kaia Gallagher, PhD¹, Kim Riley, MPH¹, Nancy B. Csuti, Dr PH², and Laurel Petralia². (1) Center for Research Strategies, 225 East 16th Avenue, Suite 1150, Denver, CO 80203, 303-860-1705, kaia.gallagher@crsllc.org, (2) The Colorado Trust, 1600 Sherman St., Denver, CO 80203

Rural communities have historically struggled with the maldistribution of health care providers and are finding the need to become pro-active in their recruitment and retention efforts. Within Colorado, The Colorado Trust has initiated a three-year, $10 million initiative to increase the number of health care providers across multiple health professions categories. After the first year of this initiative, a number of “best practice” strategies are emerging regarding community-based approaches for addressing shortages including: 1) “grow-your-own” programs to encourage rural residents in rural and underserved settings to select health care careers 2) health scholarship programs to allow current rural health care workers to advance their skills 3) loan repayment programs to recruit specialized health care professionals into rural community settings and 4) career lattice programs to enable employers in shortage areas to retain employees. This presentation will report on the relative effectiveness of these strategies in addressing short and long term measures of provider shortages. Profiles of communities that have been successful in the provider recruitment efforts will be provided. Program characteristics that enhance recruitment and retention in more isolated rural settings will be identified. Finally, the presentation will offer recommendations as to how rural communities can customize their provider recruitment/retention strategies to address shortage issues for different types of health professional categories.

Learning Objectives:

• 1. To synthesize the array of strategies and training experiences currently used to encourage health professions students to consider working in rural settings
• 2. To disseminate best practices regarding community based health professions recruitment strategies
• 3. To analyze the relative effectiveness of community-based recruitment strategies in encouraging students to select rural practice settings

Keywords: Rural Health Service Providers, Workforce

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation