For the last several years, JP Cullen has attended the annual WHA Advocacy Day in Madison, WI. The event (which took place on April 19th this year) was brimming with healthcare professionals, hospital leaders, volunteers, and construction companies like JP Cullen, deeply committed to growing and maintaining our great healthcare systems in Wisconsin.
Over the course of the day, we learned a whole host of great details about healthcare in Wisconsin:
- Wisconsin healthcare quality is ranked THIRD BEST and THIRD MOST EFFICIENT in the country, and has been listed among the top 5 states for healthcare quality for over a decade
- Wisconsin has the highest percentage of high quality health plans, and the largest number of plans that received a score of 4.5 or 5 (out of 5)
- Wisconsin ranks among the BEST STATES for getting injured employees back to work.
- Employers ranked healthcare second only to education in terms of importance in their site location and expansion decisions
- Healthcare in Wisconsin creates 7,000 jobs in the healthcare industry, and 3,000 jobs in other sectors
- 95% of Wisconsin residents have health insurance!
Another thing we learned was that, much like the construction industry, the healthcare industry is facing a labor shortage in its future. For us, it’s skilled tradespeople; for the healthcare workforce, it’s trained physicians, advance practice nurses, and technicians. WHA is looking ahead all the way to 2035 and projecting a labor shortfall. Much like how JP Cullen provides scholarships to driven young people in construction fields and trade schools, WHA is working with state legislators to expand and create additional residency programs, to make sure Wisconsin-trained physicians are in positions to stay in the state after they graduate, as well as provide training and education grants to hospitals across the state.
In addition to meeting great people in the healthcare field, learning about projects and developments in the industry, it was illuminating to realize that the challenges our two industries face as we head into the future are shockingly similar, with one central desired outcome: to continue to provide exceptional service to our clients.
