GRAND FORKS, N.D. (KFGO) – The University of North Dakota’s School of Medicine’s 7th biennial report to the legislature on the current state of the health of North Dakotans sheds light on the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare for the state’s healthcare workforce and delivery system, but also highlights some hopeful signs that Gov. Doug Burgum’s goal of making N.D. the healthiest state in the nation could be attainable – so says Dr. Joshua Wynne, the school’s dean.
“In general, we are making progress on improving the health of North Dakotans, and related of course is the availability of healthcare providers, but we still have more work to do,” Wynne said.
Like nearly every economic and labor sector, the healthcare workforce’s ability to keep pace with demand is the number one challenge mentioned in the report’s executive summary. With nearly half of the state’s doctors coming out of UND, there was additional pressure on the school during the pandemic.
Mandi-Leigh Peterson is the report’s main author.
“Our academic programs were able to address the situation moving from in-person to virtual very rapidly and continue to graduate students on time and enter them into the health workforce at a time of critical need,” she said.
Peterson said the contract tracing effort undertaken by public health providers was another highlight of the state’s response during the pandemic.
The report shows North Dakotans are relatively healthier than the country as a whole, with improvements and positive trends in a number of areas, including reductions in certain risk behaviors that lead to adverse outcomes, and promising data on chronic conditions and disease management. The state did have higher rates of influenza and pneumonia compared to the country as a whole, and led the nation in the number of deaths attributed to Alzheimer’s disease.
“What we see when we summarize all the data – in general we are making progress in improving the health of North Dakotans and the availability of health care providers. There’s good news, but there’s more to do,” Wynne said.
He said one of the greatest concerns for the state for a long time has been the distribution disparities between rural and urban healthcare providers, but the most recent data shows the state’s Healthcare Workforce Initiative to produce and retain more providers may be working.
“We have stemmed the tide somewhat by getting more people to remain in-state for practice, especially in rural areas,” he said.
Wynne said the pandemic exacerbated a lot of workforce strains, but provided new insights on how to provide services in rural areas.
“We learned about ways we can augment in-person delivery – so you don’t need to have a psychiatrist for instance, located in Rugby, but we can bring that psychiatrist or other provider virtually to Rugby,” he said.
He said all of the residents in the UND psychiatry program now learn about and practice virtual care.
Wynne heads to Bismarck to present the report’s findings to the legislature on Wednesday.
“My message would be ‘let’s stay the course.’ We have not solved the problems, but we are making progress. The healthcare enterprise in North Dakota is not broken – it’s pretty good, but we can make it better. The Healthcare Workforce Initiative is making a difference. We can achieve the goal but it will not happen by itself,” Wynne said.
Wynne said he thinks most legislators he’s spoken with acknowledge that behavioral health specifically needs additional attention.
“There remains significant unmet behavioral health needs – we saw this just with our students during the pandemic, let alone the general population. It’s good that it’s out in the open and that we recognize that we collectively need to do better,” he said.
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