Texas needs more nurses, doctors
First a possible mental health reform and now federal nursing grants?
This summer is shaping up to be a solid start toward a better health system.
The Health Resources and Services Administration will award $149 million in grants to 12 different workforce programs.
“By encouraging partnerships among academic institutions, clinicians, health care sites and public health entities, we can improve health outcomes in underserved communities,” said HRSA Acting Administrator Jim Macrae in a news statement.
Certain Texas universities will get 19 awards totaling about $9.5 million.
The programs vary from behavioral health to primary care training, but most of the Texas money is going toward nursing.
All of the grants will help boost nursing and medical graduates, something Texas desperately needs.
Texas has a crisis looming.
The state is short-staffed in physicians and nurses, mainly in rural areas. There are other underserved areas also, and it’s getting worse.
Most of the state’s counties are designated as medically underserved areas.
The criteria for this designation involve primary care physician ratios, poverty rate, infant mortality rate and elderly population.
The Texas Medical Association says there are about 43,000 physicians for about 23 million Texans.
The Texas Team Action Coalition’s 2013 report says the state won't have enough nurses through 2020 without a major increase in workforce.
These grants will help.
One grant will help students from disadvantaged backgrounds obtain doctor or nurse credentials.
Texas Woman’s University will receive $650,000 for this program.
Texas Christian University will get about $660,000 to help provide loan forgiveness for nursing graduates.
Both grant awards will help with bring more nurses into the workforce, ones who won’t have to struggle to repay massive loans.
This should help keep Texas’s medical shortage problems at bay while the state builds a better healthcare foundation.
This story was originally published July 22, 2016 at 6:57 PM with the headline "Texas needs more nurses, doctors."