Washington State’s health industry employers are experiencing critical shortages of qualified, competent health care workers at the same time the state has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. Efforts to create a solution for these two problems are limited by Washington State’s significant public policy issues. The education infrastructure is ill prepared to respond to the need to expand capacity to educate more health workers. Currently two-thirds of qualified applicants to health education programs are turned away for lack of capacity.

Faced with this confluence of complex public policy issues, WSHA decided to create the Health Work Force Institute. The goal of the Institute is to bring together industry, community based organizations, education and work force development organizations to leverage available resources and provide accountability while developing a sustainable health work force.

Building Washington's future health work force through sustainable public/private partnerships.

To improve the health and wellness of Washington State residents by strategically developing a sustainable health work force, partnering to identify needs and developing programs to recruit, develop and retain health workers.