Achieving high-quality health care and access for all

In summary, lessons learned from past efforts point the way for the success of future initiatives. There continues to be a pronounced lack of URM applicants who gain entry into the nation's health professions schools. This shortfall may be attributed in part to inadequate academic preparation, and to a lack of awareness of health care careers and knowledge of financial aid resources. Communities and institutions have established model programs to address the problem of poor academic preparation. To this end, there is considerable understanding and commitment by federal, state, and local governments, which are now focusing their resources on the training and education of students in the early stages of the educational pipeline. The private sector also has recognized the importance of the changing demographics of the workforce and how it impacts the national economy. Therefore, the private sector is aggressively investing resources in the training, education, and quality of health care provided for ethnic and racial minority groups. The solution is to work hand in hand to ensure ever-increasing numbers of competitive students from URM backgrounds in the overall applicant pool for medicine and other health professions.