Creating a behavioral health system in South Carolina that fully meets the needs of residents and the behavioral health workforce is critical to improving the state’s overall health.

The South Carolina Institute of Medicine and Public Health (IMPH) is a nonpartisan convener with the mission to collectively inform policy to improve health and health care. The Workforce for Health Taskforce was launched in April 2018 to determine South Carolina-specific policy changes and health care workforce solutions needed to create sustainable, person-centered systems of health care that promote population health.

The Taskforce represented more than 60 of the state’s leading experts from health care systems, state agencies, consumer groups, academia, community-based organizations, nonprofits and philanthropic organizations.

In the report The Evolving Workforce: Redefining Health Care Delivery in South Carolina, state specific, evidence-based practice and policy solutions are outlined in four key areas:

• Embracing the evolution of health and human service roles,
• Training and educating health and human service providers,
• Behavioral health workforce needs and
• Setting the stage for the evolving workforce.