Building Ohio’s health care workforce: We need visible pathways connecting people and jobs
Like just about everybody working in healthcare in Ohio, we’ve been thinking for a long time about our acute and painful people shortage — the persistent lack of certified and licensed professionals to provide Ohioans with the competent care they need to get and stay healthy. Unfortunately, there’s nothing new about this crisis.
What we believe is new is a developing statewide effort to make direct connections between open healthcare jobs and people who, with the right support, can fill them. Our two organizations are convening Health Workforce Ohio to serve as a hub for people and groups across the state working to solve this problem.
Statistics gathered by The Health Collaborative in November paint a striking picture. Overall, Ohio had 67,000 active job postings for healthcare positions. The required credentials and training cover a wide range; here are just a few examples:
- Respiratory therapist: 3,100 active postings; average salary $78,700
- Surgical tech: 2,900 active postings; average salary $59,700
- Sterile processing: 1,000 active postings; average salary $44,300
- Medical assistant: 3,200 active postings; average salary $41,400
Obviously, we’re not the first to take on the healthcare workforce shortage; lots of good organizations are running training and education programs that are critical to long-term success. What we’re trying to do differently is to focus on the point where job and candidate meet. We know the job openings and training programs exist and we know that plenty of people, particularly young people in underserved communities, would thrive in them. But there’s an awareness gap; potential candidates don’t know about these jobs or they don’t know the path to get to them. We want to help build those pathways and put people on them.
We want high school students, new graduates, and underemployed adults across Ohio to know that they have good career prospects and we want them to know how to find their way to a great future in healthcare. For too many Ohioans it’s a mystery, and it shouldn’t be.
How can Health Workforce Ohio make a difference? We believe it’s a matter of “Convene, Assess and Invest”: It starts with bringing together partners representing an array of organizations across Ohio. This includes Ohio Association of Health Plans, along with more than 20 organizations representing hundreds of stakeholder partners including the Ohio Hospital Association, Association of Ohio Health Commissioners, Ohio Association of Community Health Centers, regional health collaboratives and other statewide organizations that want to solve this problem. Then, with the unprecedented statewide perspective this gives us, we can determine what tactics and actions will do the most to put people in healthcare jobs as soon as possible.
That’s where the investment comes in. It might be basic supports like gas cards to help people get to training; often it’s funding to pay people a wage while they are learning new jobs. The workforce that we know is out there includes a lot of people who need jobs now; they can’t afford to spend two years in school or even six weeks in unpaid training. We want to explore and invest in other ways to remove the barriers that keep people out of jobs where they’re desperately needed.
We’re hopeful the general assembly will recognize the value in this approach as the 2026-27 state budget takes shape. Ohio needs healthcare workers and Ohioans need careers on which they can build bright futures. Health Workforce Ohio is about creating and illuminating glide paths into those careers. Funds invested in our work won’t go to universities, hospitals or other large institutions. For us, the litmus test will be: “Does this program connect an individual with a job?”
Ultimately, along with forging those connections, our mission will be to make them known in every corner of the state. Gov. Mike DeWine has said he wants every Ohio high school senior to have a career plan. It’s an excellent goal and for it to be realized, we need to marshal the resources to create pathways to in-demand jobs and, further, to make sure young people know about them.
We’re confident Health Workforce Ohio can play a key role in making this happen. No single player in the healthcare universe can solve the problem. Though all have important roles to play, we believe what’s needed to truly make progress is a central convening body, with a statewide, data-informed strategy, mission-driven to lead Ohioans to critical healthcare jobs.
We’ve never seen such a broad coalition around this issue before now and we can’t wait to get started.
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The Health Collaborative is a Cincinnati-based nonprofit organization convening leaders to address critical healthcare problems and a statewide convener of healthcare sector partnerships.
The Ohio Alliance for Population Health, based at Ohio University, is focused on improving the health of all Ohioans by solving complex and pressing population-health problems.
