SMHS publishes fifth biennial report on health in North Dakota

The UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences (SMHS) Advisory Council, a legislatively mandated group of 16 stakeholders connected to North Dakota’s health care enterprise, has published the School’s Fifth Biennial Report: Health Issues for the State of North Dakota.

Highlights from the Report include:

• Although North Dakotans have a lower prevalence of diabetes than the rest of the U.S., and are less likely to report fair or poor health, they have a higher risk of certain cancers and a mortality rate that exceeds the national average.
• North Dakota is tied for fourth in the country in the percentage of its state population 85 years of age or older. Because demand for health care increases with age, demand for services is especially pronounced in the state.
• North Dakota has fewer physicians per 10,000 residents (5.7) than the United States as a whole (7.2), but more primary care physicians on average. Our physicians are older and more likely to be male than elsewhere in the U.S.
• While North Dakota has a lower percentage of uninsured people than America as a whole, the rates of non-insurance climb for persons living in rural areas and on American Indian reservations.
• A majority of hospital nurses are licensed practical nurses (LPNs) or registered nurses (RNs) and were trained in-state. There was a vacancy rate of greater than 10 percent for all levels of nurses in 2018.

This latest Report updates the previous four editions with a comprehensive examination of health care workforce licensure data. Data were gathered in January 2018 and examined the number of licensed professionals and their locations, specialties, and demographic information. The result of this survey informed two new chapters: a comprehensive chapter on the nursing workforce in North Dakota, and a chapter on psychiatrists, behavioral health, and the non-physician health workforce in the state.

The School’s First Biennial Report was published by the SMHS Advisory Council in 2011 to coincide with the state’s 62nd Legislative Assembly. The primary stimulus for the preparation of the Report was a revision in the North Dakota Century Code (NDCC) in 2009 by the 61st Legislative Assembly in which the duties of the SMHS Advisory Council were modified.

Health care in North Dakota is delivered through more than 300 ambulatory care clinics, 52 hospitals (including 36 critical access hospitals with 25 or fewer beds), 80 skilled-nursing facilities, 68 basic-care facilities, and 72 assisted-living facilities, supported by an array of EMS providers, trauma centers, public health units, oral health providers, mental health providers, and pharmacies. Generally, the further the facility is from a metropolitan area, the more its operation is threatened by financial and other pressures, including staff recruitment and retention.

The full Report can be read online at http://med.UND.edu/publications/biennial-report.