Marisa Wojcik:
What are the gaps that need to be covered?

Ann Zenk:
We need to grow our workforce faster, especially in big segments. The nursing workforce makes up over half of Wisconsin hospital workforce. In fact, every two out of three working nurses in Wisconsin work for a hospital or a health system. So, the sustained shortage of nurses puts a lot of pressure on hospitals, on nurses and the entire health care team. The other segment of the workforce that we have been working really hard on growing faster for at least the past decade is the physician workforce. Physicians are retiring at a faster rate than we can replace them. And that creates longer waits for patients for clinic visits, for procedures, for specialty care. So, we really need to continue to work hard on growing more physicians for Wisconsin.

Marisa Wojcik:
On nursing, why is that area kind of a little bit stubborn in its growth?

Ann Zenk:
You know, there are some encouraging signs. For the last two years, applications and enrollments to nursing schools have increased, both two-year and four-year nursing schools. That's a great sign. Now the biggest challenge is making sure that there's enough seats in the classroom. The top two barriers that nursing schools identify are faculty and clinical sites. So, if we can break down those two barriers, we can decrease the number of applicants who are turned away from nursing school.