If you’ve lived in the Las Vegas Valley for any length of time, you’re likely to have heard this canard: “Where do you go in Las Vegas to get good medical care? The airport.”
Many have accepted this as an immutable truth about living here — almost like accepting 115-degree temperatures in July. But Southern Nevada has been on a positive health care trajectory for more than a decade, and the critical confluence of efforts around this issue is culminating in a vibrant health care environment that ensures access to a full complement of quality services, but can be promoted as yet another reason to consider Las Vegas a premier travel destination.
Renee Coffman
I used the phrase “critical confluence” deliberately because it illustrates that these efforts have come from many quarters — and at a perfect time. Those of us who are AARP-eligible use more health care services than any other demographic. Each year over the next decade, 3 million more Americans will hit retirement age. Clark County will encounter this “baby boomer bulge” with estimates that our over-50 population will more than double to almost three-quarters of a million by 2020. The tidal wave is coming. So why am I optimistic? I believe the past decade’s confluence of efforts positions us to excel in our delivery of health care services to residents and tourists who will visit not only for entertainment, but for quality health care.
Medical tourism is one of the major endeavors of Las Vegas HEALS, a coalition of medical and wellness industry professionals, organizations and institutions devoted to improving access and delivery of health care in Southern Nevada. As one of the primary drivers of the confluence, Las Vegas HEALS represents a grassroots effort to support, expand and enhance health care through coordinated efforts of its members. It is actively marketing Las Vegas as a health and wellness destination, and envisions success in many health care arenas.
State government and corporations also have been instrumental. Initiatives like Gov. Brian Sandoval’s allocation of $10 million to support graduate medical education in Nevada will be key in providing residency training, increasing the likelihood that doctors will stay in Nevada to practice. Valley Health System’s Henderson Hospital, Dignity’s four new “neighborhood hospitals” and the creation of the Las Vegas Medical District all are evidence of the efforts to improve access.
The linchpin that holds all this together is education. UNLV, Touro and Roseman have expanded health care programs over the past decade. We are finally well-positioned to grow our own health care workforce. With the tripartite mission of education, research and service, these institutions drive biomedical research and can provide the most current evidence-based clinical services to our community.
It is an exciting time to be in health care in Las Vegas: a time to consign the airport joke to the same historical dustbin as images of mushroom clouds seen from the Strip — part of our past, but no longer relevant.
Renee Coffman is president of Roseman University of Health Sciences.