WHITE SULPHUR SPRING, W.Va – As employment rates decline in West Virginia, the healthcare field continues to grow as one of the most significant sources of jobs in the state.

Vandalia Health has become one of the state’s largest employers, and its leadership understands how important it is to serve West Virginians.

“In the last 14 months, recent statistics from [The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce], mining has declined, manufacturing jobs have declined, hospitality jobs have declined. The only one to go up is healthcare,” Vandalia Health president and CEO Dave Ramsey said last week at the Chamber’s annual business summit.

During his remarks, Ramsey highlighted the importance of providing access to medical care for as many people as possible. He believes doing so requires healthcare professionals to be cultivated out of the state’s own population.

“It’s hard to recruit to West Virginia. It’s hard to get talented, educated people to focus in healthcare and move to West Virginia, so we have to educate our own,” he said.

One of the steps being taken toward increasing the number of qualified professionals in the state is educating them within local medical facilities, and Vandalia Health is pursuing that with fervor.

“Within the halls of Vandalia Health, every day will be thousands, literally thousands, of people doing their clinical rotations,” Ramsey said.

That pursuit is already paying dividends, with numbers indicating a significant amount of the medical professionals getting experience in West Virginia choosing to practice in the state.

“This past graduating class, 70% of the physicians that finished training in our programs stayed in West Virginia,” Ramsey said.

Work across the Vandalia Health system continues on a number of projects expanding its facilities. Ramsey said these developments will be responsible for continued job growth beyond healthcare.

“500 construction jobs, and when we’re done, it’ll be about 250-300 new jobs across the state,” he said.