Meet the demand for health care

Caring for an aging population will require more nurses and other health care professionals than ever. But qualified, eager students are being turned away.

Achieving a balance between the needs and the supply will be hard but manageable.

There is a serious shortage of nurses and other health professionals such as nursing assistants, lab technicians and pharmacy technologists. Because of the critical role of nurses, the shortages in their ranks have attracted some of the sharpest attention.

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing said preliminary data show that, despite a 5 percent enrollment increase in one year, nursing programs turned away 32,000 qualified students in 2006. Randy Spaulding of the state Higher Education Coordinating Board said such figures typically understate the demand, because the competition can lead capable students to avoid applying.

Meeting the future needs will require expansion of the opportunities for education and good jobs among American students. There is an inexcusable alternative: wholesale recruiting from abroad. The idea, which has received attention in Congress, would deprive Americans of opportunities while robbing foreign health care systems of workers educated there at considerable expense.

In recent years, the Legislature has repeatedly provided extra funding for opening additional positions for students in several high-demand areas, including nursing, for both four-year and community colleges. Suzanne Ames of the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges said 14 of the system's 22 current high-demand programs involve health-care education.

Here as elsewhere, though, colleges struggle to attract and keep faculty for the programs and find enough facilities where students can practice their skills under supervision. The key can be partnerships between educators and health-care providers, according to the nurses association and local leaders. In Washington, for instance, Big Bend Community College pays benefits for a nursing instructor who also works for a health-care institution that pays her a salary considerably higher than the school could give.

Both two-year and four-year colleges will ask legislators for more money next year for various high-demand programs. There's a public payoff not just in better health care but also in good jobs.

In an October study, the regional Prosperity Partnership said global competitiveness requires the Puget Sound area colleges be able to produce thousands of additional four-year and two-year degrees in a variety of areas, including medical research, nursing and health technology. A healthy economy and good health for an aging, growing population both depend on steady progress toward educating enough health-care workers.

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