Spann, who is a registered nurse, said that the shortage can be attributed to changes in the population and problems in the U.S. healthcare system. This can lead to burnout for healthcare workers as well as a lack of accessible care for people across the state. To combat these issues, the Arizona government has been working with healthcare organizations and professionals to create programs which will put more resources and funding toward the profession.

Spann said that many nurses are aging out of healthcare, but not enough nurses are joining the workforce to replace them.

“Baby boomers were very limited on what were acceptable jobs for women. You could be a teacher (or) you could be a nurse,” Spann said.

Because women’s job opportunities have expanded, Spann explained, less women are going into the healthcare profession.

She added that the population is aging. This is especially true in Arizona and Maricopa County, where elderly people often retire.

“Because we have the aging workforce, we also have an aging population. Our baby boomer population is huge, and so the need for healthcare services have also gone up,” Spann said.

Libby de Bie, the CEO of the Arizona Medical Association, said that the problem of supplying healthcare services can also begin at the college level. Many students come to Arizona for medical school but leave for residency, De Bie said, and they tend to stay in the state their residency was in.

Furthermore, De Bie explained that there is a lack of support for Arizona’s healthcare workers, which can lead nurses and doctors to leave their fields.

“(Nurses are) thrown into settings they’re not trained for, and there’s no time for training,” de Bie said.

Spann said that this was seen during COVID-19.

“COVID was the straw that broke the camel’s back, because it really just highlighted how insufficient our efforts were. We needed more support. We needed more workers. We needed more of everything,” Spann said.

De Bie said that this lack of compensation is evident in physicians’ salaries, which are not adjusted for inflation and can therefore discourage physicians from staying in the workforce.

“Primary care is the biggest need because reimbursement is not aligned with their level of training,” De Bie said.

This is exacerbated because Arizona does not have as much money to allocate toward healthcare as other states do.

De Bie said that there are three categories to focus on in order to begin solving the healthcare shortage: recruitment, retainment and culture. These solutions can start within the state government.

Recruitment and retainment are often done financially and through education. Edith Di Santo, the health program manager for the Arizona Department of Health Services, said that the state gives nursing scholarships, works with university and high school students so they can apply for federal programs, and established the Arizona State Loan Repayment Program.

Spann said that many nurses leave the profession soon after starting because they do not feel supported and ready for their job. However, Spann believes the government can help bridge the gap between finishing school and being ready to work as a nurse.

However, Spann also said that sometimes the government hinders more than helps. It recently cut ASU’s budget and closed the Lake Havasu campus, which had nursing staff and was in a rural underserved area.

“Our education, where we stand statistically, is ridiculously low compared to other states in the United States, and I think that is a huge barrier to creating more viable options for the people who live here,” Spann said.

According to Di Santo, Arizona has hundreds of places, often rural, which are considered primary care health shortage areas.

“We don’t even really have enough positions just for metropolitan areas or nurses,” Spann said. “But then you have rural areas where there’s not a lot of access to health care, and so they’re having to drive really far to get to the health center.”

De Bie suggested that, to help solve this, the government could incentivize primary health providers to go to rural areas by giving tax credits or repaying some of their medical school debt.

“It’s a difficult climate and environment right now to get key legislation passed,” De Bie said.

However, the Arizona Medical Association still aims to do so. They have also gotten government funding for nurses and physician assistant educators, giving out grants of $1,000 to people who train one or more medical students, PAs, nurses or dentists.

Di Santo said that one of the Department of Health Services’ goals is to partner with advisers who work in the healthcare industry and can help them make their programs more accessible.

To help with this, ArMA created the Healthy Arizona Workforce Coalition about 2 years ago. It consists of a group with 25 stakeholders, including those in government office, who took over 18 months to find the communities in Arizona with the highest healthcare shortage.

Ultimately, though the problem of healthcare shortages are difficult to solve, particularly in Arizona, Di Santo said that the state can start working toward solutions by providing information, technology and resources to both students interested in going into healthcare as well as those who are already working in the profession.