With major healthcare partnerships, expansions, and investments underway, the stage is set for New Orleans to see a raft of improvements designed to increase medical staff numbers, provide greater access to healthcare for those traditionally underserved, and improve health outcomes for residents.
The policy groundwork for these improvements was recognized by City Health, an initiative of the de Beaumont Foundation and Kaiser Permanente, which awarded New Orleans a silver medal in recognition of the city’s efforts to improve people’s access to healthy choices and address critical health disparities in local communities.
Medical staffing shortages
Part of this effort requires addressing medical staffing shortages—especially nurses. The National Center for Health Workforce Analysis projects a national shortage of 78,610 nurses in 2025 and a shortage of 63,720 in 2030. Louisiana is projected to have a 13% shortage of nurses in 2035. With over half of registered nurses reaching retirement age this decade and Covid-19 negatively impacting retention numbers, a strong pipeline of new nurses is needed.
The merging of LCMC Health with Tulane Medical Center, Lakeview Regional Medical Center, and Tulane Lakeside Hospital, aims to address medical staff shortages with the creation of a new nursing program. LCMC Health CEO Greg Feirn said “Through this partnership, Tulane University’s new nursing program will help address the nursing shortage in Louisiana by expanding the pipeline of students entering the nursing field—making meaningful progress towards addressing the 2,475 unfilled full-time nursing positions projected in New Orleans by 2025.”
The University Medical Center is already the largest training center for healthcare professionals in Louisiana and will welcome new staff from Tulane Medical Center over the next 12-24 months. In addition, the Charity Hospital and Tulane Medical Center will house expanded educational space for students, graduate programs in public health, social work, and medicine—as well as new clinical research programs.
LCMC Health is also partnering with LSU and Southern University to address nursing shortages. In November last year, LCMC Health, LSU Health New Orleans and the LSU Foundation announced a partnership to launch the LSU-LCMC Health Scholars Program for nursing students providing tuition and fees assistance to eligible students intending to pursue employment at LCMC Health. In addition, Southern University of New Orleans (SUNO) has signed a letter of intent to create the LCMC Health-SUNO Nurse Scholars program providing tuition-free enrollment at SUNO’s School of Nursing.
“We’ve invested in partnerships with Chamberlain, Holy Cross, LSU, Tulane and SUNO to either start nursing programs or provide financial support to current nursing students at these institutions,” Feirn said.
LCMC Health has also announced a $1.5 million donation to Xavier University to create and retain a diverse physician workforce in Louisiana. The donation provides direct financial assistance to outstanding students who otherwise would not have chosen pre-med, fellowships for exemplary graduate students in the LCMC Health Medical Pathways Program, and support for Xavier alumni who have completed medical school in the U.S. and have been accepted into a residency program with either LCMC Health, LSU School of Medicine, or Tulane School of Medicine.
Ochsner Health is addressing the medical staff shortage through its Ochsner Scholars program which provides tuition assistance, mentoring, and career coaching for aspiring nurses, allied health workers and physicians who pledge to serve as employees at Ochsner Health. The program is projected to benefit 3,000 students by 2025. There’s also the new Ochsner Center for Nursing and Allied Health at Delgado and additional $20 million in funding to support the programs, including to help build the new facility.
“A longer-term solution is our alignment and partnerships with universities, community colleges and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) schools to train nurses, physicians and other healthcare professionals,” said Pete November, CEO of Ochsner Health. “We collaborate with Delgado, Loyola, Tulane, Xavier, Holy Cross, LSU and others to create more access to physician, nursing and healthcare education here in Louisiana.”
Ochsner has earmarked $15 million for nursing students over the next ten years as part of Loyola’s accelerated 17-month nursing degree program, with up to $37,500 going to ten prospective nurses if they work for Ochsner for 3-5 years after graduating. An additional $15 million will be provided to medical school students over the next five years.
In addition, Ochsner is addressing doctor shortages by partnering with Xavier University. With a $2.4 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Ochsner and Xavier created the Ochsner-Xavier Institute for Health Equity Research (OXIHER) to boost the number of African American and Hispanic doctors, which are traditionally under-represented nationally. In February 2023, Ochsner and Xavier also announced an agreement to establish a joint College of Medicine to boost the number of new doctor graduates and address longstanding inequities in the nation’s health care system.
Healthy State by 2030
Diabetes, heart disease, and obesity are already at epidemic levels in the USA and even higher in Louisiana. According to the 2022 Annual Report of America’s Health Rankings based on research conducted by the United Health Foundation in partnership with the American Public Health Association, Louisiana ranks at the very bottom of the list. Additional factors such as the number of children living in poverty, low birth weights, the number of smokers in the state, were included in the assessment of each state’s health with Louisiana at the bottom.
But initiatives by LCMC and Ochsner are helping to address the situation. Ochsner has adopted an ambitious vision for the state: to improve Louisiana’s health ranking to somewhere in the top 40 by 2030—just seven years away. “We recently formed a 38-member Healthy State Advisory Board, representing 35 organizations spanning multiple sectors, businesses, and industries,” November said. “By joining forces, Healthy State collectively represents 100,000 employees, educates over 200,000 students and cares for 4.6 million community members’ lives, all working together through a common vision and commitment to a better Louisiana.”
Improving Louisiana’s performance will require improving the health of Louisiana’s most vulnerable communities.
Reaching underserved communities
With support from Brittany and Drew Brees and their Brees Dream Foundation, Ochsner has committed more than $10 million for the Ochsner Community Health Brees Family Center in New Orleans East. Dubbed, “The Center,” the campus opened in 2020 and delivers primary and specialty care to underserved communities.
In January 2023, Ochsner also opened the Ochsner Medical Complex, a $115 million “super clinic” in Metairie providing a comprehensive suite of services to that area.
And in December last year, LCMC Health’s West Jefferson Medical Center opened the Centro Hispano de Salud, a Hispanic-first clinic located in Marrero. With bilingual staff, the Centro Hispano de Salud is in a better position to positively impact the more than 28% of Hispanic-Latino people who have indicated that they are not proficient in English.
Medical staff diversity
Another factor that improves health outcomes for underrepresented groups such as people of color, people with disabilities, and people from a lower socioeconomic status, is increasing the number of doctors and other medical staff from those communities.
In February 2023, LCMC Health launched the “Minority Administrative Fellowship Program,” providing financial support to recent graduates to further develop their knowledge of hospital management and operations over the course of a year. Successful candidates who complete the program increase their chances of earning a full-time position with LCMC Health.
Both Ochsner and LCMC actively collaborate with community leaders and industry partners to identify potential candidates of color for their programs, partnering with the New Orleans Chapter of the National Association of Healthcare Service Executives (NAHSE) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). This work helps historically underserved communities which thereby improves health outcomes for all patients, and in the process boosts Louisiana’s overall health ranking.
