When Gov. Rod Blagojevich presides over monthly cabinet meetings, critical health care access, including the nursing workforce shortages, is a topic that is "on the hotplate every month," said Dean Martinez, secretary for the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

"This is a national and global issue," Martinez said about a nursing shortage calculated to increase by more than 21,000 in Illinois alone by 2020.

The Illinois Center for Nursing, created a year earlier by Blagojevich, is part of the IDFPR.

Center board members have been looking at a stepping stone to widening participation in the nursing field by finding ways to recruit and keep instructors.

"We have begun to work on grant programs for those to stay in the teaching profession," Martinez said.

Work has also begun to provide more scholarship money for those financially strapped who want to enter the field. Other avenues being looked at include finding ways to retain nurses here and assisting those who move to Illinois to get certified quickly if they have been licensed in another state to practice nursing.

"We do have higher standards here than many other states," Martinez said. "We require background checks to ensure there are no criminal histories."

- Scott Fitzgerald