Administration Launches New Toolkit to Help States Navigate COVID-19 Health Workforce Challenges

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Assistant Secretary of Preparedness and Response (ASPR) released a new toolkit to help state and local healthcare decision makers maximize workforce flexibilities when confronting 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) in their communities.

This toolkit includes a full suite of available resources to maximize responsiveness based on state and local needs, building on commitment to a COVID-19 response that is locally executed, state managed, and federally supported. This work was developed by the Healthcare Resilience Task Force as part of the unified government’s response to COVID-19.

This comprehensive toolkit for individuals managing workforces during the COVID-19 pandemic provides helpful information on funding flexibilities, liability protections, and workforce training all in one place. For example, state and local communities will be able to access the COVID-19 Healthcare Workforce Toolkit to see how and where workforce waivers can be applied based on information from other areas.

The COVID-19 Healthcare Workforce Toolkit also provides up-to-date best practices so that state and local health-care decision-makers have a go-to resource to know what’s been implemented in the field and to find out how it’s working. The toolkit is available online and includes an assistance center, information exchange of case studies and additional peer-to-peer communications that can be used to help local communities determine the best way to battle the COVID-19 based on their unique needs.