With Las Vegas expected to reach a population of 3 million by 2042, health care in an already underserved community and attracting medical professionals will become more important than ever.
Today, health care is No. 3 in employment in the region and is forecast to be No. 2 in the next three years, second only to the casino and hospitality industry, according to Andrew Woods, director of UNLV’s Center for Business and Economic Research. Health care can help drive economic diversification in the future, according to Woods who recently hosted a panel discussion on the topic.
“In almost every other metropolitan area in the country, health care is their largest sector for employment with a few rare exceptions,” Woods said. “It can play a much larger role in our economy. It’s one of the fastest-growing industries in Southern Nevada. We’re forecasting another 25,947 workers in health care in the next 10 years. That means we need another 55,000 jobs if we want to catch up with the national average. What we see is investing in this industry is investing in economic diversification. That’s why it’s important we’re investing in health care as much as we are in leisure and hospitality, manufacturing and other great industries that we have here.”
Marc Kahn, dean of the UNLV Medical School, said when businesses recruit workers,they’re going to ask about education and health care. Nevada has a significant shortage of all types of medical providers from nurses, physical therapists and physicians.
“We have a phenomenal School of Hospitality,” Kahn said. “We should really be the leaders in medical tourism. We just need to build our facilities, and build our supply of practitioners and market what we have to offer.”
Elena Medo, an inventor whose undertaking medical start-ups, said the first question she gets from applicants from out of state is inquiring about the health care system and its poor national ranking.
“I know everyone is trying to make it better,” Medo said. “I’m not trying to be negative, but it’s bad. There’s not only a shortage of care. That shortage has stretched the quality of care. In order to bring health care into Las Vegas, that’s got to be fixed very fast. There needs to be a marketing program that says: ‘Yes, it was bad but it’s better now.’ “
David Damore, head of UNLV Brookings Mountain West think tank, said coming out of the Great Recession the state hired Brookings to create a framework for economic development. Health care topped the list since it was the largest metropolitan area in the country without a medical school.
“That was a fight to get that done,” Kahn said. “We are now growing that asset, we’re finally getting that momentum.”
Las Vegas City Manager Mike Janssen also said they get questions on health care when they recruit employees and that it’s part of being a great community.
DeRionne Pollard, president of Nevada State University, called health care the most personal industry that exists and is a cradle-to-grave industry. Health care is often trivialized, but it’s an industry that defines human existence, she said.
“It defines the experience in a community, and that’s why it’s relevant to how we think about the quality of life that it can have on the community,” Pollard said.
When it comes to attracting physicians, Kahn cited how some go through four years of college and four years of medical school. In order to get licensed, they are required to have a residency of three to five or six years. For some specialities, a fellowship is then required.
“I’m a medical oncologist so after medical school I still had seven years of training.” Kahn said. “The problem we have in Nevada is we don’t reach the 50th percentile in physicians per capita in any speciality. We’re not just underserved in primary care but we’re underserved in mental health care, surgery and across the board.”
The problem is the residency programs are funded primarily by the federal government with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and it froze the number of training spots in 1996.
“We were a very different state then,” Kahn said. “We have 403 total funded residency positions as a state. California has more than 9,000 and New York has over 18,000. We’re woefully undersubscribed. If you graduate from a medical school in our state, you have a 40 percent chance to practice here. If you graduate from a residency program, you have about a 60 percent chance. If you do both, it’s 80 percent. We have to grow the residency programs to get the doctors we need in the state. We’re working to keep these doctors and train them here. It’s tough because we need money to train them, and we’re fixed at the federal level.”
Gov. Joe Lombardo talked about that residency expansion in his State of the State address in January, and that can help create the workforce needed, Kahn said.
Janssen said the city is trying to focus investments of redevelopment agency dollars on health care. It has partnered with the College of Southern Nevada on two workforce training centers and CSN wants to do a third focused on medical education in the Medical District in the downtown area. It would train non-physician positions in health care.
There are also plans for a juvenile health education center and clinic with Nevada State University, Janssen said.
“There’s an underinvestment in higher education in our state,” Pollard said. “We ranked 46th, 47th or 48th in the number of adults attaining some form of higher education. We know that affects the entire quality of life for folks who live in this region.”
Janssen said Las Vegas is rolling out a biotech innovation challenge where the city through its redevelopment agency is looking to put up $10 million toward a partnership with a higher education facility and the biotech company. The goal is to bring a company to the Medical District.
“There’s the capacity there for the biotech expansion in our community,” Janssen said. “We wanted to put some money up to incentivize that opportunity. By aligning it with higher education, you have student researchers that can work with the biotech scientists to bring that component to the Medical District. We’re going to reach out around the world to see who’s interested in coming to Southern Nevada.”