Health care

EEUU: Northwest Arkansas schools expand health care education to meet demand

Noticias

EEUU/March 13, 2018/Source: http://www.nwaonline.com/

Higher education institutions are increasing class sizes and starting programs to meet the growing need for health care workers in Northwest Arkansas, school officials said.

«We believe we are addressing the workforce shortage — not just in Arkansas — but specifically, the increased need that is projected for Northwest Arkansas,» said Stephanie Gardner, interim chancellor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Fastest growing in Arkansas

The fastest-growing occupation through 2024 is projected to be occupational therapy assistants with a 54 percent growth. Physical therapist aides are expected to grow by 45 percent, and physical therapist assistants are expected to see 42 percent growth over the same time period.

Source: Arkansas Department of Workforce Services

Northwest Arkansas is among the fastest growing areas in the nation and is expected to reach 800,000 people by 2040, according to a 2016 report by the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission. That growth means more health care professionals and support staff members are needed, said Mervin Jebaraj, director at the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas.

The region also has an aging population, more access to insurance than previous years and more health care workers nearing retirement, Jebaraj said. The combination is driving the need for more workers, he said.

The Northwest Arkansas metropolitan statistical area — which includes Benton, Washington and Madison counties in Arkansas and McDonald County, Mo. — will need about 1,000 medical professionals and 800 support staff annually through 2028, Rob Smith, Northwest Arkansas Council communications and policy director, wrote in an email. From 2015 to 2016, about 1,024 people became health care staff or professionals, he wrote.

The council is a group of business and community leaders who attract businesses to Northwest Arkansas and improve the area’s workforce.

Statewide, about 15,000 health-care-related jobs have been created since 2014, Jebaraj said. That increase is expected to continue.

«We’ve seen health care jobs across the state and in Northwest Arkansas go up significantly,» Jebaraj said.

Health care technicians, practitioners and support specialist jobs are expected to grow in Benton and Washington counties by nearly 5 percent between 2016 and 2018, according to the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services. That’s above the statewide prediction of 3.6 percent over the same time period.

«What’s encouraging is that many of our region’s school districts are actively addressing our need for those health care support staff,» Smith said. «There’s a real willingness to be active creators of new programs.»

Expanding with need

Educational programs, from bachelor’s degrees to nine-week certificates, are growing among Northwest Arkansas institutions. The schools are partnering to funnel students into more education.

UAMS and Northwest Arkansas Community College are working on an early acceptance agreement for the community college’s students to go directly into the Radiologic Imaging Sciences program at the university’s campus in Fayetteville.

The University of Arkansas and UAMS are offering a new occupational therapy doctorate program. The first students in the program will arrive during the 2019 school year, said Fran W. Hagstrom, assistant dean for the UA College of Education and Health Professions.

That joint-venture works in part because UAMS started a physical therapy program that could become a pipeline for other programs, Hagstrom said. The first cohort of physical therapy students at UAMS graduate in May, which means the new program is on target for professional accreditation, said Susan Long, interim dean of the UAMS College of Health Professions.

Schools are working together, including hospitals and clinics that accept more students to train, said Jamin Snarr, EMS program director at Northwest Arkansas Community College.

«Everybody kind of stepped up to help us out and allowed us to increase our student numbers,» Snarr said.

NWACC agreed in November to accept licensed practical nurse graduates from Northwest Technical Institute into its registered nursing program early. About 50 nursing students at the technical school are expected to graduate this May and be eligible for the early admittance.

«It’s just a pathway from Northwest Technical Institute to further their nursing career with higher degrees,» said Blake Robertson, institute president.

Hospitals in particular are looking for more education among its employees, Robertson said.

The shortage of health care professionals includes paramedics, Snarr said.

The employee turnover rate at Central Emergency Medical Service, an ambulance service that covers nearly all of Washington County, was about 17 percent last year. Officials with Central EMS and fire departments have said they struggle to find, recruit and keep paramedics.

That shortage is why the community college accepted 25 students, instead of the usual 18, into the paramedic program this spring, Snarr said. The school plans to expand to 34 students until the shortage is over, he said.

The institute plans to begin a short-term phlebotomy program starting next fall.

UAMS continues to grow in the area. It is assessing whether to start a sonography program and wants more students in radiological imaging sciences, Gardner said. The master’s degree in genetic counseling program is growing to eight students, and four of those students will be at the Northwest campus.

The competition

Schools are trying to expand while continuing to give students quality education and find space, officials said. But, there is a bottleneck at the education level, Jebaraj said.

The University of Arkansas gets about 400 applications for 100 student spots per semester, Hagstrom said.

«That’s not uncommon among health professionals at all,» she said.

For example, 261 people applied for 36 slots in the UAMS physician assistant program this year, according to the school. The ratio for speech language pathology is even worse — 151 applications for about 20 spots.

Competition among students is stiff, Robertson said.

Last semester, the institute moved students in its nursing and surgical technology programs into a bigger classroom and laboratory, but it’s not enough, Robertson said. The school needs more space, and applications are on the rise.

«We turn away good students because we just don’t have the space,» Robertson said.

Robertson asked the state for a $3.5 million grant to double the size of its center for health care programs about a year ago but didn’t get the money, he said. He plans to ask the governor again, he said.

Schools inevitably must accept more students, but growth should be done so class sizes don’t overwhelm instructors and students still get the education they expect, Hagstrom said. Decisions on growth are up to the schools, she said.

«Can we expand? Absolutely,» Hagstrom said about the University of Arkansas. «And, I think we will see some expansion of programs in the coming years.»

Source:

http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2018/mar/11/northwest-arkansas-schools-expand-healt/?news

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Estados Unidos: Maternal education: A matter of life and death for infants?

Noticias

Estados Unidos / 01 de noviembre de 2017 / Por:  / Fuente: https://journalistsresource.org/

Infants whose mothers lack a high school education are, in some states, more than twice as likely to die as those born to mothers with four years of college or more, a new study finds.

The issue: Education provides tangible benefits, including employment opportunities and knowledge that can improve both the quality and duration of one’s life. But these effects extend beyond just the direct recipients of an education — children also benefit from their parents’ schooling.

Prior research on maternal education has shown that increased education offers mothers more connections with resources for infant health and an awareness of healthy behaviors (including exercise and not smoking). Education might also hone the skills needed to access and effectively use the health care system.

In general, infants born to more educated mothers have lower mortality rates. A new study delves into the specifics, determining on a state-by-state basis the extent to which mothers’ education levels affect their babies’ chances of survival.

An academic study worth reading: “Inequality in Infant Mortality: Cross-State Variation and Medical System Institutions,” published in Social Problems, October 2017.

About the study: Benjamin Sosnaud, a sociologist at Trinity University, looked at almost 23 million infant birth and death records from 1997 to 2002. The records, provided by the National Vital Statistics System, include data on the mother’s schooling. Sosnaud compared two groups of mothers — those who had less than 12 years of education and those who had 4 years of college or more. Controlling for other variables, including race and maternal age, he analyzed the association between maternal education and infant mortality across the 50 states.

Sosnaud also collected state-specific data from the American Hospital Association on the number of neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) per 10,000 residents and from the American Medical Association on the number of primary care providers per 10,000 residents. This data allowed him to analyze whether linkages exist between these components of state medical systems and trends in infant mortality rates.

Key findings:

  • Taking into account other factors, including race and maternal age, maternal educational level is significantly linked to infant mortality risk.
  • Alaska, North Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia and Kentucky had the largest differences in infant mortality rates across maternal education levels. In these states, infants born to less-educated mothers were more than twice as likely to die as infants born to more-educated mothers.
  • The state with the smallest difference in infant mortality rates across maternal education levels was Hawaii. New Mexico and Nevada also exhibited less inequality.
  • In states with more NICUs, infant mortality risk decreased only for those born to less-educated mothers.
  • In states with more primary care physicians per 10,000 residents, infant mortality risk decreased for both groups of mothers, but more so for the college-educated group. Sosnaud suggests this might be because not all mothers could access primary care providers, regardless of availability.

Other resources:

  • The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Reproductive Health describes initiatives aimed at reducing infant mortality rates. They also have statistics available on infant mortality by state.
  • The U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau collects relevant data and research.
  • The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has an advisory committee on infant mortality.

Related research:

Fuente noticia: https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/education/maternal-education-infant-mortality

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EEUU: Education fund gap could go as high as $80M

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EEUU/ October 10, 2017/By: Valley News/Source: https://vtdigger.org

State officials and school board members say the Education Fund shortfall could go as high as $80 million and could wallop many property owners with a 5 percent increase in the school tax rate.

Vermont Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcombe has said that a 7- to 9-cent increase in the statewide property tax is likely unless school boards make significant budget cuts.

The projections for fiscal year 2019 will ultimately add pressure to local school boards gearing up to begin their budget processes, said Hartford School Board Chairman Kevin Christie, who also is a Democrat in the Vermont House.

“There might be some very, very difficult decisions to make, and until we know what that bottom line is looking like, we don’t know what they are,” Christie said.

Kevin Christie
Hartford School Board chair Kevin Christie. File photo by Geoff Hansen/Valley News

If the budget gap falls on property taxpayers, who pay $1.06 billion into the $1.58 billion Education Fund, it would add about 8 cents to the current homestead property tax rate of $1.51 per $100 of assessed property. It also would add 8 cents to the nonresident rate, currently $1.535, state officials said this week.

The exact impact on individual school districts will vary, depending on their spending, but the base rate increase would amount to a $200 tax hike on a home valued at $250,000 for those Vermont residents not eligible for the state’s income sensitivity program.

 

“Needless to say, the pressures that we’re trying to address are very similar to the state level, especially with the health care component, and we haven’t completed our negotiations for our teacher contracts,” Christie said.

Emily Byrne, the chief financial officer for the Vermont Agency of Education, said the primary driver of the funding gap is the state’s decision to prop up the current FY2018 budget with about $47 million in “one-time” funds that were taken primarily from an end-of-year surplus and an education reserve fund.

“The problem from a budgetary perspective is, if you use one-time money for ongoing costs, you have a problem right out of the gate the following year,” Byrne said.

Those measures actually slightly decreased the property tax rate for the current year, but for fiscal year 2019, which starts next July, there is pressure not only to make up for the loss of the cushion, but also to put about $9.4 million back into the reserve.

Adam Greshin, commissioner of finance and management said the Education Fund gap could go as high as $80 million if school district voters approve budgets with an average increase of of 3 percent. If school budgets are held level or below 3 percent, the anticipated tax increase could be partially averted, said Greshin, a former independent state representative and school board member from Warren.

“I think the governor is going to continue to focus on the same issues because they’re just as important,” he said. “We’re going to ask school districts to reduce the growth in their spending and level fund their budgets, and we’re going to continue to advocate strongly for a statewide health care contract.”

Greshin pointed to an anticipated spike in fiscal year 2019 health care rates — the Vermont Education Health Initiative says premiums will increase by as much as 17 percent for school district employees across the state.

“Keep in mind, the two initiatives that you saw out of the administration last (spring), both would have zeroed in on unsustainable growth. The first would have asked school boards to level fund their budgets. That didn’t happen,” Greshin said.

“The second initiative, which received a great deal of attention, was to move to a statewide health care contract for all school employees. That too didn’t happen. Both of those initiatives would have made life substantially easier this year.”

Royalton School Board member Geo Honigford, president of the Vermont School Boards Association, said he’ll argue against a budget cap at an upcoming Oct. 19 meeting of VSBA members that will include a discussion on how to address the fiscal crisis.

“Caps are never really great policy, because they’re a one-size-fits-all solution,” he said, citing schools with capital improvement emergencies or growing student populations as examples of districts that would not do well under a cap.

Honigford said the Vermont School Boards Association is developing recommendations for solutions that would include a statewide teacher health care agreement negotiated by school boards and unions.
The VSBA also will seek to address Vermont’s student-to-staff ratio, which Honigford said has fallen from 4.7 students per staff member to a lowest-in-the-nation 4.2 to 1 over the past several years.

“A task force would look at staffing in each district and then be able to make recommendations,” he said.

Honigford said that local budget talks in Royalton would depend on the outcome of an upcoming Oct. 24 vote on a consolidation with the Bethel School District.

Even as school boards prepare to sharpen their pencils on local education budgets, there will be various initiatives to change the picture at the state level.

Honigford said the Legislature is sure to make an effort.

“It’s an election year, so we fully anticipate legislators will have no stomach for an 8-cent increase and then saying ‘vote for me.’ We anticipate some sort of cost containment measures coming down the road and we want them to make sense,” he said.

Christie said he’s seen several proposals, some including diversifying the revenue stream, that would dramatically change the way that education is funded, and that any one of them could be implemented very quickly — if the political will can be mustered.

“Most of the concepts have been placed on the table before or at least have been looked at in a cursory way,” he said. “It kind of takes a collective will to say ‘we’re going to change.’ That’s not easy.”

Source:

Education fund gap could go as high as $80M

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