Rural graduate medical education is an evidence-based strategy to address rural workforce shortages. Start-up funding and technical assistance help rural health facilities successfully create programs designed to meet local needs. State and federal initiatives are working synergistically to expand rural training in North Carolina, and untapped potential for growth exists. View the manuscript published in… Read more »
National Atlas of Surgeon Supply Across Specialty and Geographic Area
The ACS Surgical Workforce Mapping Tool, developed in collaboration with the Program on Health Workforce Research and Policy at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, UNC-Chapel Hill, provides a comprehensive, data-driven view of where surgeons practice across the United States—and where gaps in access to surgical care exist. By visualizing surgeon distribution… Read more »
National Atlas of Surgeon Supply Across Specialty and Geographic Area
National surgeon projections may obscure specialty- and community-level variation needed to target workforce and surgical access policies. We characterized surgeon supply, geographic distribution, and concentration across 12 surgical specialties and multiple geographic units. Manuscript published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
Physician Transitions Out of Clinical Practice: Age, Sex, Generational and Specialty Effects
Manuscript published in Health Affairs Scholar Author: Erin Fraher, PhD, MPP Estimates of physician workforce attrition typically rely on Medicare claims data, which cannot distinguish reasons for exit from clinical practice. We used licensure data to examine how age, sex, generational cohort, race/ethnicity, specialty, and rural practice location are associated with retirement and temporary exit… Read more »
Monitoring the Workforce Outcomes of North Carolina Medical School Graduates: Retention In State and in High Need Geographic Areas and Specialties
Authors: Evan Galloway, Erin Fraher, Nathan Tarr, Catherine Moore, Hugh H. Tilson Jr. In 1993, the General Assembly required the University of North Carolina’s Board of Governors to submit an annual report to the legislature on the number of North Carolina (NC) medical school graduates going into primary care. Since 1994, the Cecil G. Sheps… Read more »
How Did Hurricane Helene Impact the Health Workforce in North Carolina?
Authors: Brianna Lombardi, Monica Jimenez, Erin Fraher In September 2024, Hurricane Helene caused significant damage across many counties in western North Carolina (NC), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) designated disaster areas in 28 NC counties. In a previous blog post, we examined the size and composition of the health workforce in these counties prior… Read more »
Physicians Who Complete Both Medical School and Residency in North Carolina Are More Likely to Stay Here to Practice
Authors: Evan Galloway Our latest blog post examines the in-state retention of two cohorts of North Carolina medical school graduates (2015 and 2020) from our annual medical student tracking report who also completed residency in NC.
Is Access to Primary Care Clinicians Improving in North Carolina? A 2025 Update
Authors: Evan Galloway Our latest blog post updates the primary care clinician (PCC) index, which measures access to care in North Carolina using a ratio of 1,500 population to 1 primary care clinician (physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, or certified nurse midwives) is set as the standard for measuring access.
2024 Health Workforce Update: Insights from the North Carolina Health Professions Data System
Authors:Abhi Joshi, Catherine Moore, Brooke Lombardi Our new blog post presents select findings from the 2024 data and includes an overview of changes to physician, oral health, pharmacy, and nursing workforces in active practice in North Carolina (NC). We also highlight a recent change to the HPDS supply visualization tool, which now allows users to… Read more »
North Carolina’s Certified Nurse Midwife Workforce is Growing, but the Workforce Remains Maldistributed
Authors: Brooke Lombardi, Connor Sullivan, Catherine Moore, and Erin Fraher In 2023, section 4.3 of Senate Bill 20 / North Carolina (NC) Session Law 2023-14 (Care for Women, Children, and Families Act, 2023) removed the requirement for Certified Nurse Midwives (CNMs) to practice under the supervision of a physician if they meet specific criteria. This… Read more »
The Transition, Onboarding, and Integration of Newly Hired Faculty into Nursing Academia: A Scoping Review
Authors: Cheryl B. Jones PhD, RN, FAAN, Sinhye Kim PhD, RN, Mary Killela PhD, RN, Leah Morgan PhD, RN, Jill M. Forcina PhD, RN, CNE Product: Manuscript published in the Journal of Professional Nursing
Unpacking the Primary Care Clinician Index: Understanding How Changes in Population and Workforce Supply Affect Access to Primary Care in North Carolina
Authors: Erin Fraher, Brianna Lombardi, Evan Galloway Product: Manuscript published in the North Carolina Medical Journal
Outcomes of NC Medical School Graduates: How Many Stay in Practice in NC, in Primary Care, and in High Need Areas?
Authors: Evan Galloway, Hugh Tilson Product: Report
Trends in North Carolina’s Oral Health Workforce
Authors: Brooke Lombardi, Catherine Moore, Haley Simons, Evan Galloway, Erin Fraher Product: Poster presented at the 2025 AcademyHealth Annual Meeting The project manuscript is published in the North Carolina Medical Journal.
Trends in Workplace Violence for Health Care Occupations and Facilities over the Last 10 Years
Authors: Brianna Lombardi, Todd Jensen, Evan Galloway, Erin Fraher Product: Poster presented at the 2025 AcademyHealth Annual Meeting The project manuscript is published in Health Affairs Scholar.