A year has passed since the official launch in Wilmington of the first pilot program of a statewide initiative tasked with finding top talent for a shrinking health care workforce.

Known as the N.C. Health Talent Alliance, the public-private collaboration brings together the NC Chamber Foundation and the NC Center on the Workforce for Health to create a talent pipeline to recruit and retain nurses and other health care professionals to offset staffing shortfalls.

Vincent Ginski, director of workforce competitiveness for the NC Chamber Foundation, said in a news release that the primary goal of the NC Health Talent Alliance “remains simple, but bold: We aim to eliminate talent shortages in one of the state’s bedrock economic sectors and create sustainable talent pipelines directly responsive to health care employers’ most critical needs.”

According to NC Nursecast, which forecasts the future supply and demand for registered nurses and licensed practical nurses throughout the state, North Carolina faces an estimated shortage of nearly 12,500 registered nurses and slightly more than 5,000 licensed practical nurses by 2033. According to the same study, nurse shortfalls will hit hospitals hardest, with demand exceeding supply by almost 10,000 positions by the same year.

“To date, our work has primarily focused on conducting a comprehensive survey of healthcare providers in southeastern North Carolina to better understand their most critical workforce needs,” said Megan Mullins, chief marketing and engagement officer at the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce. “In our region, the biggest challenge we’re facing is the shortage of registered nurses and licensed practical nurses.”

Helping guide aspiring health care professionals and fortify the talent pipeline includes “introducing innovative learning approaches, like simulated learning environments, cohort programs and providing support for standardized exams,” she said.

Chipping away at the state’s health care workforce supply has included many factors, the most significant being the recent pandemic, said Hugh Tilson, director of the N.C. Area Health Education Centers (NC AHEC).

“The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and made worse the shortages of healthcare workers our state has faced and will continue to face unless we do something different,” he said in a news release. “Without the workforce, access to healthcare will be even more challenging, particularly in rural areas. This effort responds to the urgent need for immediate and sustained action to address those shortfalls.”

The health talent alliance’s everyday function will be to help form regional, employer-led collaboratives to collect and analyze real-time workforce demand data – in this case, the number and kind of health care employees needed in the state for years to come – to guide better talent pipelines.

To achieve this, it has adopted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Talent Pipeline Management (TPM) program for eventual use across all nine North Carolina AHEC regions. AHEC was founded in 1972 “to improve the supply, distribution, quality, diversity, and retention of the state’s healthcare workforce, with a focus on addressing the needs of underserved populations,” according to its website.

Recently, the TPM program got a healthy dose of funding in the amount of $200,000 from a grant awarded to the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce Foundation by the Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation.

The grant “will enable a robust expansion of the regional healthcare employer collaborative, with the aim of strengthening the local healthcare talent pipeline,” according to a news release.

Umar Bowers, of Wilmington’s Dawson Med primary care and chairperson for the regional health care employer collaborative representing Brunswick, Columbus, Duplin, New Hanover and Pender counties, said in the release, “Our regional collaborative of the North Carolina Health Talent Alliance, led by our Chamber of Commerce and SEAHEC, is so thankful to have the partnership and support of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation in our endeavors to address critical pipeline issues in the field of healthcare.”

Natalie English, president and CEO of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce, said the grant’s impact can’t be underestimated.

“This grant isn’t just about filling open positions – it’s about reshaping our entire approach to healthcare workforce development,” she said. “We’ve seen the Talent Pipeline Management strategy work wonders across other industries, and we’re excited to apply it to healthcare.”