UW CHWS June 2022 Newsletter 

Message from the Director 

This weekend, UW CHWS will join thousands of health services and health policy researchers, leaders, and educators (with appropriate masking and vaccination checks in place) at the Annual Research Meeting of AcademyHealth in Washington, DC. The ongoing pandemic, gun violence, abortion rights, climate change, structural racism, and many other social determinants of health will be on the agenda. Helping patients navigate these events often falls on the shoulders of health care workers. Yet health care workers also experience these challenges, even as they protect their patients, which contributes to burnout, a concern recently highlighted by the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General and the National Academy of Medicine. We look forward to reconnecting with colleagues in DC after a few years apart and engaging in critical conversations about the role of health care workers in addressing societal challenges. Please join us as we seek to inform policy in support of our health care workers.

Best wishes,
Bianca K. Frogner, PhD
Director, UW CHWS

Upcoming Events

UW CHWS at the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting in Washington DC

UW CHWS team members will present their health workforce research findings at the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting in Washington, DC from June 4-7, 2022. Come find us (Eastern Daylight Time):

PODIUM PRESENTATIONS:

Sunday, June 5th
8:00-9:30 am: Experiences and Work-Related Conditions of Birth Doulas Working in Underserved Communities in the United States (Paula Kett, PhD, MPH, RN, IBCLC)
3:30-5:00 pm: Public Health Services and Systems Research: Spotlight on Emerging Research (Paula Kett, PhD, MPH, RN, IBCLC)

Monday, June 6th
11:15-12:45 pm: Gender-Based Wage Gaps Among Health Care Workers: Is There a Spillover Effect? (Bianca Frogner, PhD)

Tuesday, June 7th
8:00-9:30 am: Producing Physicians for Rural and Underserved Practice: Comparing the Output of Rural Vs. Urban Family Medicine Residency Programs (Davis Patterson, PhD – study funded through Rural PREP )

POSTER SESSIONS:

Monday, June 6th
8:00-9:00 am

• B-193: Lasting Effects of Brief Implicit Bias Education on Academic Clinicians’ Personal Bias Awareness
• B-212: Stress & Burnout among Underrepresented Students in Graduate Health Professional Programs
• B-224: Prehospital Emergency Medical Services Personnel: Comparing Rural and Urban Professional Experience and Provision of Evidence-Based Care (study funded through WWAMI RHRC)
• B-225: Understanding and Overcoming Barriers to Providing Rural Obstetrical Training for Family Physicians (study funded through WWAMI RHRC)
• B-226: How Actual Practice of Emergency Medical Services Personnel Aligns with the Recommended National Scope of Practice in the Rural versus Urban U.S.
• B-227: Comparing the Performance of Family Medicine Residents in Rural vs. Urban Programs (study funded through Rural PREP)
• B-229: Preparation for Practice and Scope of Practice: Comparing Physicians Trained in Rural vs. Urban Family Medicine Residency Programs (study funded through Rural PREP)
• B-230: Enhancing Recruitment and Retention of Nurse Practitioners in Rural Primary Care through Postgraduate Residencies(study funded through Rural PREP)
• B-232: Variability in Therapy Staffing Changes in Skilled Nursing Facilities under the Patient Driven Payment Model (study funded through UW Department of Rehabilitation Medicine)

3:00-4:00 pm

• C-280: Lasting Effects of Brief Implicit Bias Education for Academic Clinicians: From Learning to Action
• C-300: Providers' Observations of Inequitable Care Delivery for COVID-19 Positive People of Color and People with Disabilities
• C-301: Frontline Healthcare Providers’ perspectives on Stigmatization of COVID-19

UW CHWS Research Highlights 

Investing in the Insurance Navigator Workforce to Advance Health Equity
Navigators support historically uninsured populations in accessing health care by providing insurance enrollment support and education, helping with denied claims, and assisting with more complex needs such as language translation. Yet the work of Navigators remains undervalued. CHWS investigators Marieke S. van Eijk, PhD, and Paula M. Kett, PhD, MPH, RN, IBCLC studied how Navigators and the organizations they work for do this health equity work with limited budgets and political support.

Health Workforce Turnover Nearly Returns to Pre-Pandemic Levels
While turnover rates shot up over the course of the pandemic for long-term care (LTC) workers as well as physicians, they are returning to pre-pandemic levels for many health care workers, according to a recent study in JAMA Health Forum led by Director Bianca Frogner in collaboration with Janette Dill, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor at University of Minnesota. However, Black and Hispanic health care workers and women with young children are experiencing slow recovery. Director Frogner identifies the need for continued workforce tracking and discusses strategies for addressing health workforce turnover in accompanying podcasts with the journal editors and on HCP Live. Study findings were recently highlighted by the American Medical Association and McKnight’s Senior Living.

Interactive Dashboards: Leveraging Public Health Workforce Supply Data
We are awash in data—but which of the many data sets from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Department of Labor, and state license records is the best to monitor health workforce supply? New UW CHWS Workforce Dashboards provide web-based interactive visualizations that allow users to see variations across data sources and over time in state supply, age distribution, and sub-state commuting patterns of multiple occupations, with a focus on the allied health workforce via funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration. Accompanying reports detail the advantages and disadvantages of using these datasets for state- and national-level supply estimates.

UW CHWS in the News

Workforce Challenges Contribute to the Rise of Travel Nurses
Travel nurses have received considerable attention recently, but hospitals have long used travel agencies to address temporary health workforce shortages and meet surges in patient demand resulting from local health emergencies. With the entire nation scrambling to fill in workforce gaps, particularly in the nursing profession, travel workers are commanding high pay, leading hospital leadership and staff workers disgruntled. Director Frogner provided her perspective to Vox, Becker’s Hospital Review, and The Washington Post on why the demand for travel workers is so high, whether the trend will last, and the broader health workforce implications. She also provided insight as to why the demographic characteristics of travel nurses tend to be younger, single, male, and of racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds compared to the national RN population in a recent blog post.

UW CHWS Funding Highlight

Public-Private Partnership for Oral Health Workforce Surveillance
Through its recent legislative session, Washington State provided $225,000 in support of the UW CHWS’ Washington Oral Health Workforce (WOHW) Surveillance Program, complementing core funding from Delta Dental of Washington. This new workforce tracking effort, now funded through a public-private partnership, launched in January with three years of initial support. The WOHW Surveillance Program will display its analysis of the supply and distribution of dentists, dental hygienists, dental assistants, and other oral health occupations in the state, their education and training pathways, industry demand for these occupations, as well as measures of the population’s need for oral health care. Initial findings should be available by Summer 2022 on the CHWS website’s Workforce Dashboards link, with more findings to follow throughout the year.

Notable Honors and Achievements
 

UW CHWS Farewells

Publications by UW CHWS Researchers

PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS
Dill J, Frogner BK, Travers J. Taking the Long View: Understanding the Rate of Second Job Holding among Long-Term Care Workers. Med Care Res Rev. 2022 Apr 25.

Frogner BK, Dill J. Tracking Turnover among Health Care Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic. JAMA Health Forum. 2022;33(4):e220371.

Harwood KJ, Pines J, Andrilla CH, Frogner BK. Where to Start? A Two-Stage Residual Inclusion Approach to Estimating Influence of the Initial Provider on Health Care Utilization and Costs for Low Back Pain in the US. BMC Health Services Research. 2022;22(1):694.

Jopson AD, Cummings AG, Frogner BK, Skillman SM. Employers’ Perspectives on the Use of Medical Assistant Apprenticeships: A Qualitative Study. J Ambul Care Manag. 2022;45(3):191-201

Kett PM , Bekemeier B, Altman MR, & Herting JR. ‘Not Everybody Approaches It that Way’: Nurse-Trained Health Department Directors’ Leadership Strategies and Skills in Public Health . Nursing Inquiry. 2022:e12487.
 

REPORTS AND POLICY BRIEFS
Oster NV, Patterson DG, Skillman SM, Frogner BK. COVID-19 and the Rural Health Workforce: The Impact of Federal Pandemic Funding to Address Workforce Needs. Center for Health Workforce Studies, University of Washington, Mar 2022.

Pines JM, Harwood K, Andrilla CHA, Frogner BK. Opioid Prescriptions, Radiography, and Costs for Self-Limited “One-and-Done” Lower Back Pain Visits in a Commercially Insured Population. Center for Health Workforce Studies, University of Washington, Mar 2022.

Visit our website for a complete list of publications.

Presentations by UW CHWS Researchers

March 2022
Frogner BK. American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) Leadership Forum: General Session. ASCP Leadership Forum 2022. March 2, 2022.

Stubbs BA. The Washington Health Workforce Sentinel Network: Update on Recent Findings. Northwest Rural Health Conference. March 21, 2022.

April 2022
van Eijk M. An Update from HRSA’s Health Workforce Research Centers (HWRCs). Bureau of Health Workforce Virtual All-Grantee & Stakeholder Meeting. April 6, 2022.

Skillman SM. Data and Insights for Health Workforce Planning and Policy in Washington. SEIU Healthcare 1199NW Multi-Employer Training Fund Board of Trustees Meeting. April 7, 2022 (Virtual).

May 2022
Maier R and Patterson DG (Co-Presenters). Producing physicians for primary care, rural, and underserved settings.  Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Annual Spring Conference, Indianapolis, IN, May 3, 2022 (Study funded by WWAMI RHRC).

Frogner BK. Reimagining Primary Care Through a Health Justice Lens. Weitzman Institute Virtual Symposium. May 4, 2022.

Frogner BK. Tracking Turnover Among US Health Care Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Country Roundtable – US. Virtual Meeting of the International Health Workforce Collaborative. May 4, 2022.

Patterson DG. Got Rural Docs? How Osteopathic Schools Do It.  National Rural Health Association Annual Conference, Albuquerque, NM, May 11, 2022. (Study funded by WWAMI RHRC).

York B. Session on Burnout Prevention Through Wellness and Resiliency. Northwest Regional Primary Care Association. May 15-17, 2022.

Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Health Workforce Research Virtual Conference, May 4-6, 2022:

• Frogner BK. Gender-Based Wage Gaps among Health Care Workers: Is There a Spillover Effect?
• Frogner BK. Lasting Effects of Brief Implicit Bias Education for Academic Clinicians: From Learning to Action.
• Skillman SM (Moderator). Wages and Well-Being: Do Gender and Gender Composition of the Practice environment matter?
• Guenther GA. Stress and Burnout among Underrepresented Students in Graduate Health Professional Programs.
• Kett PM and Guenther G. Experiences and Work-Related Conditions of Birth Doulas Working in Underserved Communities in the United States.
• Pollack S. Enhancing Recruitment and Retention of Nurse Practitioners in Rural Primary Care through Postgraduate Residencies. (Study funded by Rural PREP ).
• Sabin JA. Lasting Effects of Brief Implicit Bias Education on Academic Clinicians’ Personal Bias Awareness.
• Sabin JA. Frontline Healthcare Providers’ Perspectives on Stigmatization of COVID-19. (Poster)
• Lee D. Providers' Observations of Inequitable Care for COVID-19 Positive People of Color and People with Disabilities. (Poster)

Visit our website for a complete list of presentations.

Visit Our Research Partners: Rural PREP and WWAMI Rural Health Research Center