Dr. William Hazel, CEO of Claude Moore Opportunities: Building Virginia’s Workforce Highway

As a physician for many decades and former Secretary of Health and Human Resources in Virginia for eight years, Dr. Bill Hazel has come to believe there is one necessary ingredient to unraveling the very knotty problems the healthcare system faces: collaboration. As he explains to Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, he used his power as Secretary to breakdown government silos to develop multi-agency solutions. Now as CEO of Claude Moore Opportunities — a public charity focused on workforce development — he’s pulling players in that space together in a regional and sector-based approach. “I’m a big fan of bringing folks into a room, agreeing on what the problem is, and then thinking about different ways we can contribute to solving it.” Dr. Hazel believes collaboration is also the basis for addressing the physician burnout crisis, arguing that moving to more of a team-based approach will yield a more efficient and supportive environment. “Physicians are overwhelmed and lousy jobs will not attract and keep people. We have to fundamentally look at how we’re providing services going forward and make use of teams, which then can support each other and add expertise.” In this wide-ranging episode of WorkforceRx, Dr. Hazel also describes the role of philanthropy in providing flexible funding for innovation, advocates for starting career exploration earlier in the K-12 journey, and discusses why growing the behavioral health workforce is a top priority.

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Dr. Joanne Spetz, Director, Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF: Where Futuro Health Fits in the Workforce Training Landscape

To mark the fifth year of our founding and the 100th episode of WorkforceRx, we’ve tapped a very special member of the Futuro Health family, board member Dr. Joanne Spetz, to share her insights on the nation’s healthcare workforce landscape and how Futuro Health fits into efforts to meet the growing demand for allied health workers. “Part of the reason I agreed to be on the board is that Futuro Health is creating a model to really think about how to do allied health training at scale. What components of education can be delivered remotely or delivered on a convenient schedule for the learner, and what modules really require the in-person component,” says Spetz, director and presidential chair in healthcare financing at the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at University of California, San Francisco where she also directs the Health Workforce Research Center on Long-Term Care. As for areas to focus on going forward, Spetz thinks Futuro Health has opportunities to help its graduates succeed once on the job through creation of peer support networks. “Can those workers continue to be connected to each other for their lifelong career development and all the other things that workers do together?” This reflective conversation with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan also covers workforce challenges in long-term care, the tricky trade-offs healthcare employers face in hiring and retention, and why Futuro’s mission to create education journeys into allied health careers is so important.

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