The Iowa Department of Public Health is trying to recruit more doctors, nurses and other health providers to rural areas of the state. The Department’s Doreen Chamberlin says they’ve set up a website called the "3-R Net" to spotlight the issue.
Chamberlin says a facility in a rural area looking to recruit a health professional can place their vacancies on the "3-R Net" at www.3rnet.org . Chamberlin says the site gives those looking for a position one stop for openings in Iowa. She says health professionals nationally can view Iowa’s website and see if they can make a match. Chamberlin says they have about 150 vacancies on the website.
Chamberlin says Iowa has a big need to get new or keep health care providers. Chamberlin says the current openings include 99 for doctors, 12 for nurse practitioners, two physician assistants, 17 registered nurses, five dentists, two pharmacists, five mental health and eight in other categories. She says Iowa is 44th in the nation for physicians to population. She says the shortage of health care professionals is spread across the state.
Chamberlin says in primary care they have 58 full or partial counties designated as having a health professional shortage area, for dental there are 60 full counties and one partial county, and for mental health, 81 counties are designated as health professional shortage areas. Chamberlin says they hope the website will help ease some of the shortages by linking up the health care professionals with the open jobs.