- What are the gaps that	need to be covered?
- So we need to grow	our workforce faster,
especially in big segments.
You know, the nursing workforce	makes up over half of Wisconsin
hospital workforce.
In fact, every two	out of three working
nurses in Wisconsin work for	a hospital or a health system.
So the sustained	shortage of
nurses puts a lot of pressure	on hospitals, on nurses, and
the entire health care team.
The other segment of	the workforce that we
have been working really	hard on growing faster
for at least the past	decade is the physician
workforce. Physicians are	retiring at a faster rate
then we can replace them.
And that creates longer	waits for patients, you
know, for clinic visits, for	procedures, for specialty care.
So we really need to continue	to work hard on growing more
physicians for Wisconsin.
- And on nursing, why is that	area kind of a little bit
stubborn in its growth?
- You know, there are some	encouraging signs. For the
last two years,	applications and enrollments
to nursing schools	have increased,
both two year and	four year nursing
schools. That's	a great sign.
Now the biggest challenge	is making sure that there's
enough seats in the classroom.
The top two barriers that	nursing schools identify are
faculty and clinical sites.
So if we can break down those	two barriers, we can decrease
the number of applicants who are	turned away from nursing school.