Federation of Associations of Schools of the Health Professions
FASHP
Workforce Statement

FASHP represents the diversity of health professional institutions that educate and train the health workforce for the United States. FASHP members support interprofessional initiatives while recognizing the value of the unique contributions of each profession to the team delivery of quality health care.

Increasingly severe workforce shortages compromise the current and future delivery of health care in the United States. There are specific shortages in nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, public health, veterinary medicine, many allied health professions, and some medical specialties. These shortages are widespread, showing up in many health care settings and are not limited to underserved communities.

Moreover, there are faculty shortages in virtually all the health professions except medicine and therefore institutions cannot expand their schools and programs to meet the increased and increasing demand for health professionals.

Over the past decade, there was also a decline in the applicant pools for schools and colleges of medicine, nursing, dentistry, osteopathic medicine, optometry, podiatric medicine, chiropractic medicine and others. More recently, some professions have experienced an increase in applicants, but this increase has not yet compensated for the previous decline.

Taken together, these shortages of health practitioners and of faculty in health professional schools and the fluctuations in applicant pools cause concern about the ability to address the needs of society for an adequate supply of qualified health professionals.

The cost to prepare our nation’s health workforce is very great; graduates often carry very heavy student loan debts, which is one important factor that deters students from careers in the health professions.

In order to ensure an adequate supply of health professionals to serve the needs of our nation, FASHP supports:

• forgiveness of student loans for faculty and for health professionals who serve in communities in need of health care.
• increased research dollars to find solutions to the workforce shortages and advance our health professional schools and infrastructure.
• grants to health professional schools, colleges and programs that advance our health care delivery systems that ultimately increase access to care and improve the public’s health.
• private initiatives and public policy to enhance recruitment of highly qualified persons to the health care field.