Campaign hopes to bring medical pros to NM

New Mexico Department of Health Secretary Patrick Allen understands the risks Texas providers now face in delivering care for pregnant women because of state laws restricting abortion access.

The Health Department is referencing those risks as part of a multi-state campaign aimed at bringing health care professionals to New Mexico, a big need for a state that for years has faced a shortage of physicians, to nurses and other health care workers.

“Every day we’re looking for ways to try to attract more people to New Mexico to meet the health care needs of our state,” Allen said. “And it’s become increasingly clear over time that states like Texas and Arizona are creating an environment — politically and legally — where providers, I think, are right to have questions and doubts and fears about having their medical judgment second-guessed by the local prosecutor or the legal system generally.”

The one-month campaign from DOH, called “Free to Provide,” includes a mix of online advertisements through social media in metro areas in Texas and Arizona, and six billboards posted along the north, northwest, west and southwest regions of the Medical Center Area in Houston, said department spokesman Robert Nott.

The campaign, which cost the state about $350,000, also includes a comprehensive website, freetoprovidenm.org, where health care workers can learn more about New Mexico jobs — including links to the state’s Health Professional Loan Repayment Program to the Rural Health Care Practitioner Tax Credit Program — and find job postings with local providers.

In all, the state partnered with roughly three dozen New Mexico hospitals and clinics as part of the campaign. The Health Department put links of those employers’ career pages on the campaign’s website in an easily accessible map that breaks down the state into five regions.

Allen said the state in partnering with those providers had offered its help by consolidating and linking to the clinics’ hiring pages as a way of “creating a handy place for providers to go to find lots and lots of the health care openings, whether they’re with hospitals and health systems, or the Department of Health for that matter, all in one place.”

“They were enthusiastic,” he said of providers’ responses to the campaign. “They’re like us — they’re interested in trying to hire good people, and anything that we can do to make their job openings more visible is a benefit to them.”

State facing worker shortages

New Mexico, like other states, has faced a shortage of health care workers including physicians and nurses for many years. Thousands more would need to be hired to bring the benchmark provider-to-population ratio back up to par, according to a 2023 annual report from the New Mexico Health Care Workforce Committee.

Tim Johnsen, senior vice president and chief operating officer for Presbyterian Delivery System, said more clinicians joined Presbyterian last year than in any other year in its history. But, he said, even with that growth, “we also continue to see the need for more nurses and physicians, as well as other clinical positions such as (emergency medical technicians) and physical and respiratory therapists.”

“We appreciate this creative effort by the Department of Health to address the recruitment challenge as it is an issue that impacts every community in New Mexico,” he said.

Allen said the department at the end of the four-week campaign will evaluate “where we think we are” before deciding to either extend or expand the geographic area of the campaign, which he said could potentially include other southwestern states.

“We need more of everything everywhere, whether it’s primary care providers or OBGYNs in Albuquerque or practitioners in rural parts of the state,” Allen said. “We’re really trying to aim at that notion of, ‘This is a good place to practice, it’s a good place to live, and you can come here and practice without some of the risks and concerns that you face in other states.’”