Child care is a solution to Idaho’s healthcare workforce shortage • Idaho Capital Sun

Child care is a constant juggling act for working parents. If you’re lucky enough to find child care that fits your schedule, you’ll still be faced with costs. For many parents, it’s a choice between paying for childcare and paying for other essentials. This balancing act is often even more difficult, especially for healthcare workers.

For many healthcare workers, child care costs eat into their paychecks, and time constraints could mean they face the difficult decision of staying home with their child or missing work, which could mean having to pay someone who needs it cannot provide life-saving care. In this often mundane reality, burnout begins, followed by turnover and ultimately a shortage of workers and a lack of access to medical care. This issue should demand our attention, especially in Idaho, where we are already facing a drastic shortage of health care workers.

Kaniksu Community Health provides patient-centered care in rural communities in North Idaho. Sometimes it is the only provider available for miles. However, like many in Idaho, it faced a critical shortage of health care workers. Our leadership team conducted an employee survey and determined that childcare was one of the biggest barriers to attracting and retaining qualified employees. So they decided to do something about it.

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I was tasked with opening and managing Kaniksu Kids Club, an on-site child care center that we knew could make a difference for our healthcare workers and the entire community. We have ensured that our child care facility is more than just a place where children are protected, but a place where children can thrive, learn, grow and receive a quality early childhood education while their parents work hard to care for them to care for others. All of this is offered at a very reasonable price compared to local market prices for childcare.

A grant from the Idaho Workforce Development Council helped us nearly three years ago when we opened our doors to 20 children. We began to provide a safe, nurturing and educational environment for the children of our organization’s employees. Today we care for 50 children, with priority given to our health workers.

Luckily, our CEO is focused on providing this advantage, not winnings, which completely changes the game. We were able to provide affordable care, hire people passionate about children, and operate at a break-even level. Including on-site child care in our employee benefits package has become a valuable recruiting tool and has increased employee retention and satisfaction so much that our turnover rates have dropped from 38 percent to just 19 percent.

Child care is just one of the reasons health care workers leave the field. While we have found a solution in Kaniksu, our healthcare system nationwide is in crisis. It will require leaders from child care, education, housing, health care, government and lawmakers to work together to address the flaws in our current system.

Creative solutions to just one of these challenges – such as child care – could help solve several problems at once. The health and well-being of Idaho’s children, families and workers depend on it. Ultimately, this also applies to the health of all Idahoans. Let us come together to find these solutions, not just for today, but for the future of our communities.