Curators seeking $20 million to expand health-care training

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The University of Missouri system will press again for fresh funding to expand health care education programs at the four campuses.

For the third time, the Board of Curators is requesting $20 million from the state to help hire more instructors, recruit more students and address the big shortfall in skilled health workers.

"Our deans have been very creative so far, but we are kind of bumping up against the wall now," Steve Graham, associate vice president for academic affairs, said following the board's meeting Friday in Kansas City.

Lawmakers have rejected two previous requests. The last one led the university system's Office of Academic Affairs to create a task force to study how the system's campuses in Columbia, Kansas City and St. Louis were doing on health care programs.

The task force focused on each campus' schools of dentistry, pharmacy, optometry, nursing and medicine, as well as the likely need for health care workers in Missouri and nationally currently and in the future.

Reviewers also looked at what the programs were doing to attract and retain students from underserved groups, encourage more health care workers to take jobs in rural and inner-city areas and offer more innovation in its health care programs.

Deans told the board on Friday that the pending short of health-care workers will be dramatic, especially for pharmacists, nurses, rehabilitation therapists and imaging professionals.

Task force members said the shortage is coming because aging baby boomers will require more health services, modern medical technology needs more skilled workers and people are living longer.

"Missouri ranks 14th in the nation in the number of people over 65," Graham said.

To meet that need, some deans said they're offering summer programs for students, some as young as in middle school, who are interested in medical careers. Other schools are offering more courses online or setting up satellite academic programs.

The board has sent the $20 million request and the task force findings to the Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education, which will present the request to lawmakers.