More than half the school districts in Arizona spent a smaller percentage of their dollars in classroom instruction in the last school year than the year before, according to a new report.

We must honor the empathy of healthcare workers, the years they have spent in training, and the attention to detail they demonstrate. While these humans toil toward healthy outcomes for their patients, they are punched, kicked, grabbed, verbally assaulted, and routinely subjected to other violent behavior.

There are many skills a school principal may need on a regular basis but vacuuming and bus driving were probably not in the curriculum at teacher’s college.

Arizona doesn’t have a shortage of people who want to be nurses, but there is a critical shortage of active nurses able to train them. 

We must do everything we can to create a statewide workforce program that addresses health professional shortages to meet the state’s health care needs and continues to provide high-wage and quality jobs for Arizonans. HB 2691 can be a part of the solution. 

Community members, lawmakers, people of Arizona, I beg you to ask yourselves: who do you want in charge of your anesthesia care? If it was your family member, your child, your spouse, your parent – would you want a physician in charge of the anesthetic care, or a nurse working alone?

The Arizona Legislature is considering Senate Bill 1354 to alleviate the state’s health care workforce shortage. The bill provides support for five programs — Graduate Medical Education, the University of Arizona Medical School, primary care provider loan repayment, medical student loan repayments, and nurse training. All of these programs will move the needle on the shortage.

Nurses exist to help patients – that’s our top priority. So, when we look at the state of health care in 2017, it’s through the lens of whether it is getting easier or harder for patients to access the care they need. The answer is, it’s a mixed bag. Arizona nurses are playing a more prominent role in providing safe, quality care. But not all of the news is good; uncertainty swirls around health care policy in Arizona and nationally.

Advanced practice nurses, who typically have graduate degrees and additional training, are gearing up for a fight to further expand the scope of their practice.

Arizona’s health care system may experience some cloudy days as the state may soon face its greatest nursing shortage since the 1970s. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration, 16 states are not going to have an adequate supply of nurses by the year 2025.