Maximizing Workforce Development Capacity in a Limited Resource Environment: The Reality of Doing More with Less

Difficult economic times in recent years led to limited public health resources. Tighter budgets and expanded health service needs forced workforce leadership to make “train or not train” decisions. With increasing effectiveness of competency-based distance education, a shift toward asking “how should we train?” instead became important. Distance training reflects opportunities available in today’s workforce development environment. After all, the strength of America’s public health system depends on its workforce.

For the workforce to be able to deliver the Essential Public Health Services, accessible, effective, and competency-based training must be available to as many workers as possible, including both current and future public health professionals. No singular agency can deliver all the requisite training an individual public health worker may need throughout their career. However, a network of public health agencies may be able to develop the specialized training to meet workforce development needs across jurisdictions.

A model already exists: TRAIN, the nation’s premier learning management network for professionals who protect the public’s health. TRAIN, a service of Public Health Foundation, represents 25 state health departments and three federal-level agencies – the Medical Reserve Corps (MRC), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) – who collectively offer over 29,000 training opportunities developed by nearly 4,000 providers of training to over 750,000 public health professionals. Through the network, TRAIN partners actively share public health education and training based on competency frameworks to build workforce knowledge and capacity.

The TRAIN model provides the public health workforce with a communal venue to enhance knowledge and skills to deliver improved health services. This presentation will illustrate how online sharing and connectivity is pivotal to public health workforce development while reviewing available learning management systems and learning management networks to demonstrate optimized workforce capacity in a resource-poor environment.