NM officials encouraged by early results of Texas health care provider campaign

SANTA FE — The launch of a New Mexico state health campaign that used billboards and newspaper ads to try to lure Texas doctors and nurses to the Land of Enchantment preceded nearly 1,000 job applications from Texas, according to state agency data.

While it’s unclear how many of those applications will lead to new hires or if all the applications were in fact prompted by the campaign, a top state health official said Thursday he’s encouraged by the campaign’s initial results and plans to seek to expand it.

“Bottom line is, we’re really happy with the numbers,” state Health Secretary Patrick Allen told the Journal. “We’re obviously getting a lot of traffic from Texas.”

He said the agency will continue its marketing efforts in Texas and is looking at expanding the campaign into other states, though no final decisions have been made.

The state Department of Health launched the $400,000 campaign last month. It included online advertisements in Texas and Arizona and six billboards in the Houston area.

In addition, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham ran full-page advertisements in five major Texas newspapers this month aimed at recruiting health care professionals to New Mexico.

The ads specifically cited Texas’ ban on abortion, with certain exemptions, with the governor claiming the Lone Star State’s law has restricted physicians’ ability to do their jobs.

The ad blitz prompted a spicy retort from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office, with a spokesman saying Lujan Grisham should “focus on her state’s rapidly declining population instead of political stunts.”

New Mexico has struggled for years to address health care staffing issues, with an average shortage of 5,000 health care workers statewide over the last several years, according to Legislative Finance Committee data.

In an attempt to bolster the ranks of health care providers, the state has launched a student loan forgiveness program and appropriated more funding for health care faculty endowments at state colleges and universities.

However, New Mexico is still projected to be short of industry benchmarks by 2,118 doctors as of 2030, according to a Cicero Institute report from this year.

In addition, every New Mexico county except for Los Alamos County is designated as a health professional shortage area, according to the report.

Given that backdrop, about 120 hospitals, health care clinics and other employers around New Mexico partnered with the Department of Health’s marketing initiative.

Since the campaign’s launch last month, a website created in conjunction with the campaign — which is officially called Free to Provide — attracted more than 25,000 visitors, of which 18,740 were from Texas, according to DOH data released Thursday.

In addition, the agency surveyed some of the state health care providers involved in the campaign.

The seven providers that initially responded to the survey reported they had received about 17,000 job applications during the last month, 985 of which were from individuals in Texas.

“I think we’re certainly going to continue what we’re doing in Texas,” Allen said.