Compiling available research and profiles of 11 immigrants representing the full scope of the U.S. health care industry, the upcoming report Immigrants in Health Care: Keeping Americans Healthy through Care and Innovation interweaves data and testimonials to offer a comprehensive picture of the outsized impact immigrants have on the health of all Americans. To debut this report and offer an interactive platform for experts and practitioners, The ILC Public Education Institute hosted a free webinar, Immigrants in Health Care, on January 28, 2016.

This upcoming report is authored by Marcia Drew Hohn, EdD, retired director of The Immigrant Learning Center, Inc. (ILC) Public Education Institute, and published by the Institute for Immigration Research, a joint venture between The ILC and George Mason University.

Participants from 36 states posed important questions to the five speakers and collaboratively proposed tangible solutions to issues of credentialing, workforce integration, employer engagement and more.

Could we have more please? And thank you, thank you for your invaluable contribution to the broad perspective.

Webinar participant

Dr. Hohn summarized key report findings and introduced two immigrant health care professionals, Elizabeth Mande from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nam Tran from Vietnam, who told their stories to attendees (See videos of Elizabeth and Nam). This was followed by a reaction panel moderated by Denzil Mohammed, director of The ILC Public Education Institute. The panel included Amanda Bergson-Shilcock of the National Skills Coalition, José Ramón Fernández-Peña, MD, of the Welcome Back Initiative, Joyce Sackey, MD, of Tufts University School of Medicine, and Kira Khazatsky of Jewish Vocational Services of Greater Boston.

Some of the takeaways included:

• Immigrants play critical roles in both the high- and low-skilled areas of health care by filling vacancies in under-served areas and contributing the linguistic and cultural competence necessary to cater to an increasingly diverse population.
• Trusted organizations giving sound guidance are needed to integrate foreign-educated medical professionals into U.S. health care. Such organizations include the Welcome Back Initiative and IMPRINT.
• Re-licensing and re-credentialing are major hurdles but are not the only on-ramp to workforce integration. There is a huge spectrum of health professions in the United States in fields such as health administration, public health, research or academia.

Click here to learn more about the webinar and view important tools and resources for integrating immigrant health professionals.