As Vermont’s healthcare system evolves, building and sustaining the workforce behind it will be one of the state’s most important investments.
Throughout October, Health Careers Awareness Month has provided an opportunity to reflect on the many pathways into health care, the opportunities that make those careers possible, and the importance of building a strong and sustainable workforce in Vermont.
But as the month comes to a close, the conversation extends well beyond career exploration and education.
It’s about the future of healthcare in our state, the people who will make it possible, and what we need to do today to ensure Vermont’s communities have access to the care they need for generations to come.
As our state looks ahead to the next five, ten, and twenty years, we’re facing important questions about what healthcare will look like, how it will be delivered, and how we can ensure that people in every community have access to the services they need.
New approaches to care, evolving technologies, educational opportunities, and statewide investments are creating possibilities for what comes next. But whatever the future of healthcare looks like, one thing remains certain: it will depend on the people who make it possible.
And building that workforce is work we cannot afford to put off until tomorrow.
A changing state with changing needs
Vermont’s healthcare system is entering a period of significant transformation.
Our population is aging. Communities are experiencing changing health needs. Hospitals and healthcare organizations are examining how to deliver services more effectively and sustainably, while new approaches to prevention, community-based care, and technology are changing how and where patients receive care.
These developments present opportunities to strengthen healthcare in Vermont, but they also underscore the importance of having a workforce prepared to meet the demands of a changing system.
According to the Vermont Department of Health’s 2024 State Health Assessment, Vermont has one of the oldest populations per capita in the country. As the number of older Vermonters increases, so does the need for medical care, rehabilitation, long-term care, home health services, and other forms of support.
Meanwhile, the Vermont Department of Labor’s 2024–2034 projections show that the state’s two fastest-growing occupational groups are both in health care. One includes health care support roles, while the other encompasses health care practitioners and technical professionals.
The need for skilled health professionals is not going away. In many fields, it is expected to grow.
But workforce availability is only part of the challenge. Where those professionals practice matters just as much as how many enter the field.
In a rural state like Vermont (the most rural in the country with 64.9% of its population living in rural areas), the consequences of workforce shortages can extend far beyond an unfilled position. They can determine whether a family has access to primary care close to home, whether an older adult can receive the support needed to remain in their community, or whether a local healthcare organization can continue offering essential services.
A strong, well-distributed workforce is fundamental to ensuring that geography does not determine someone’s ability to receive care.
Vermont’s efforts to transform its healthcare system recognize that connection. Improving access, affordability, health outcomes, and long-term sustainability will require collaboration across hospitals, primary care practices, mental health providers, community organizations, and the many professionals who keep those services operating.
The question, then, is not simply how Vermont will fill today’s open positions. It is how we build, support, and sustain the workforce that will make tomorrow’s healthcare system possible.
Building a workforce takes more than filling vacancies
When workforce shortages become urgent, attention understandably turns toward immediate solutions. How do we recruit the physician? Hire the nurse? Keep an experienced therapist practicing in Vermont? Help a rural health care organization maintain the staffing necessary to serve its community? These are critical questions, and they require meaningful investment.
But a sustainable workforce cannot be built solely in response to the vacancies that exist today. It requires looking at the entire journey into and through a healthcare career, from the earliest opportunities for exploration to education, professional training, recruitment, and retention.
For some Vermonters, that journey begins in middle school or high school, when a hands-on experience or conversation with a health professional introduces a career they had never considered.
For others, it begins much later. A working adult looking for a new professional direction. A parent returning to education. Someone discovering that a certificate, apprenticeship, or two-year degree could provide a pathway into a meaningful health care career.
And for those already pursuing or practicing a profession, the journey continues through clinical training, professional development, financial support, and opportunities to put down roots in Vermont.
Each of those stages matters.
Early career exploration helps introduce the possibilities. Accessible education and training make those possibilities attainable. Clinical experiences and mentorship help prepare future professionals for the realities of practice. Recruitment and retention efforts help ensure that their skills and experience benefit the communities that need them.
There is no single moment when a workforce is built. It is the result of opportunities, connections, and investments made over many years.
That is why early pipeline development deserves a place alongside the more immediate workforce solutions Vermont is pursuing.
The person who will fill a health care position in 2036 may be sitting in a Vermont ninth grade classroom today. Someone needs to help them discover that career, understand what it requires, and see a possible future for themselves within it.
We cannot expect people to pursue professions they have never heard of or had the opportunity to explore. And we cannot expect them to build careers in Vermont without providing meaningful opportunities to learn, train, and establish connections here.
This is the space the Vermont AHEC Network was built to fill
For more than three decades, the Vermont Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Network has worked across that continuum, connecting students to careers, health professionals to communities, and communities to better health.
Today, the Network includes the UVM Office of Primary Care and AHEC Program in Burlington, Northern Vermont AHEC in St. Johnsbury, and Southern Vermont AHEC in Springfield. Together, these academic and community partners share a commitment to strengthening Vermont’s health workforce and improving access to quality healthcare throughout the state.
The statewide approach is significant. Vermont’s health workforce needs do not stop at county lines, and neither can the solutions.
Through longstanding relationships with schools, colleges, healthcare employers, educators, health professionals, and community organizations, the Vermont AHEC Network connects people and resources across the state, bringing together local knowledge and statewide workforce priorities.
Its programming reflects the many different stages of health workforce development.
Career exploration initiatives, mentorship programs, and hands-on experiences introduce students to the breadth of opportunities in healthcare. Programs like the Community-based Health Internship Program (CSHIP), AHEC Scholars, and other educational and clinical experiences help future professionals develop skills and understand the realities of providing care in Vermont communities.
For professionals already entering or serving the workforce, recruitment and placement services, educational loan repayment, scholarships, and continuing education provide additional support for building and sustaining careers in Vermont.
These efforts may serve different populations and address different needs, but they share a larger purpose: ensuring that Vermont has the people, skills, and professional capacity necessary to meet the healthcare needs of its communities.
And the Network’s impact is measurable.
From July 2024 through June 2025, the Vermont AHEC Network generated more than 6,600 middle school, high school, and undergraduate student connections, with 82 percent occurring outside Chittenden County.
During that same period, the Network provided continuing education to more than 2,300 health professionals, supported health professions student clinical rotations, engaged 248 medical students through AHEC Scholars, facilitated physician placements in Vermont, and administered educational loan repayment funding to support workforce recruitment and retention.
Longer-term data offer another perspective. Between 2015 and 2025, 1,192 students participated in 48 intensive AHEC pipeline programs. Among program completers who have since graduated from college, 74 percent earned health-related degrees.
These numbers tell us something important about both the reach of the Network and the value of maintaining connections across the workforce continuum.
A career exploration experience may be the beginning. A mentor, an internship, or a rural clinical rotation may help shape the next decision. Financial assistance or recruitment support may eventually make it possible for a professional to choose Vermont and build a life here.
No single program can accomplish all of that. But together, these efforts create something far more valuable than a collection of individual initiatives. They create an established statewide infrastructure for developing and sustaining Vermont’s health workforce.
At a time of transformation, continuity matters
Vermont is making consequential decisions about the future of its healthcare system.
Statewide transformation initiatives are examining how to improve access and affordability while creating a more sustainable approach to delivering care. The federal Rural Health Transformation Program is bringing new resources and opportunities to strengthen rural health systems.
In September, Vermont announced $9 million in Rural Health Transformation funding for tuition benefits supporting people preparing for health care careers who commit to working in rural communities. The investment recognizes an important reality: helping people enter the health workforce and encouraging them to practice in underserved communities are closely connected priorities.
These investments represent opportunities to address longstanding challenges and build a stronger system for the future. But health care transformation is about more than changing how services are organized or financed.
A new model of care still needs nurses, physicians, therapists, medical assistants, mental health professionals, dental professionals, EMTs, technicians, community health workers, and the many others whose expertise makes care possible.
Expanding education and training opportunities matters. So does ensuring that prospective students know those opportunities exist and can see a realistic path toward pursuing them. Investing in recruitment matters. So does helping professionals establish meaningful connections to Vermont communities and providing the support that encourages them to stay. These priorities reinforce one another. And each depends on a workforce development system capable of looking beyond the immediate needs of the moment.
That long-term perspective is especially important when considering the future of established programs and their funding.
A physician recruited to a rural practice represents a visible, immediate workforce outcome. An educational loan repayment award that helps a professional continue practicing in Vermont also offers a relatively direct measure of impact.
The benefits of introducing someone to a health career years before they enter the workforce can be more difficult to capture in a single budget cycle. But the time required to develop a health professional is precisely why those early investments matter.
Vermont cannot wait until a workforce shortage becomes urgent to begin preparing the professionals who may take years to educate and train. Nor can it overlook the value of the relationships, partnerships, and programs that already connect people to opportunities across the state.
As Vermont considers how best to direct limited resources, the question is not simply which programs address today’s most pressing vacancies. It is also which investments will help prevent those same workforce challenges from becoming even more difficult in the years ahead.
Sustaining an effective workforce requires both immediate solutions and a long-term commitment to the infrastructure that makes future progress possible.
For the Vermont AHEC Network, that work is already underway.
The future is being built now
There is no question that Vermont faces significant challenges in securing the healthcare workforce it will need in the decades ahead. Our population is changing. Healthcare delivery is evolving. Rural communities face distinct pressures, and the resources available to address those needs are not unlimited.
But there is also reason to be optimistic about what comes next.
Vermont has dedicated health professionals, educational institutions preparing the next generation, organizations working to strengthen career pathways, and communities deeply invested in maintaining access to quality care.
There are young people beginning to discover their interests, adults finding new opportunities to enter the workforce, students gaining experience in rural communities, and professionals choosing to make Vermont the place where they build their careers.
The future of health care is taking shape through all of them.
And throughout Health Careers Awareness Month, we’ve had an opportunity to see many of those possibilities more clearly.
The stories we’ve shared have been about individual careers, but they also speak to something much larger: the importance of creating opportunities, removing barriers, and recognizing that the strength of Vermont’s healthcare system begins with the people who make it work.
For decades, the Vermont AHEC Network has helped connect those people with the resources, experiences, and support that can shape their futures and strengthen our communities.
That work is not separate from Vermont’s broader efforts to improve healthcare. It is fundamental to their success.
The professionals who will care for Vermonters five, ten, and twenty years from now will come from many backgrounds, follow different paths, and enter a health care system that may look considerably different from the one we know today.
Our responsibility is to ensure they have opportunities to get there, and reasons to stay.
Because the future of health care in Vermont is not something we can simply wait for. It is something we have the opportunity – and the responsibility – to build.
Sources & Further Reading
Vermont Agency of Human Services, Office of Health Care Reform. Health Care Workforce Development.
Provides statewide context on Vermont’s healthcare workforce needs and the connection between workforce development, healthcare access, affordability, equity, and health system transformation.
https://healthcarereform.vermont.gov/health-care-workforce
Vermont Department of Health. Health Care Workforce Census.
State workforce data on the supply and geographic distribution of Vermont healthcare professionals, including licensed providers, actively practicing providers, and full-time-equivalent workforce capacity.
https://www.healthvermont.gov/systems/health-professionals/health-care-workforce-census
Vermont Department of Health. Shortages and Designations.
Information on the geographic distribution of health professionals in Vermont, rural workforce shortages, Health Professional Shortage Areas, and state efforts to target recruitment and retention resources to areas of greatest need.
https://www.healthvermont.gov/systems/health-professionals/shortages-and-designations
Vermont Department of Health. 2024 Vermont State Health Assessment.
Statewide population and health assessment, including data on Vermont’s aging population and other demographic and health trends that affect future demand for healthcare.
https://www.healthvermont.gov/sites/default/files/document/2024-vermont-state-health-assessment-report.pdf
Vermont Department of Labor. Employment Projections.
Current short- and long-term Vermont occupational projections, including projected growth and openings in healthcare practitioner, technical, and health care support occupations.
https://labor.vermont.gov/economic-data/data/employment-projections
Vermont Agency of Human Services, Office of Health Care Reform. Rural Health Transformation Program.
Information on Vermont’s Rural Health Transformation work and investments in healthcare delivery, workforce development, education, and training.
https://healthcarereform.vermont.gov/
Vermont General Assembly. FY 2027 AHEC Funding Testimony and Budget Materials.
Legislative materials documenting proposed FY27 reductions to three longstanding AHEC-supported workforce investments: the $500,000 AHEC Support Grant, $667,111 Vermont Educational Loan Repayment Program, and $50,000 Physician Placement Grant.
https://legislature.vermont.gov/Documents/2026/Workgroups/House%20Appropriations/FY%202027%20Budget/Public%20Hearings/W~Mary%20Kate%20Mohlman~AHEC~2-20-2026.pdf
Vermont General Assembly. Anne Morris, M.D., Written Testimony on Vermont AHEC Funding, February 11, 2026.
Additional context on the role of state AHEC funding in early health career pipeline development, Educational Loan Repayment, physician recruitment and Vermont’s broader primary care workforce strategy.
https://legislature.vermont.gov/Documents/2026/Workgroups/House%20Health%20Care/FY%202027%20Budget/W~Anne%20Morris~Written%20Testimony~2-11-2026.pdf