Column: Colleges address health care workforce needs

BY ANN RUBENZAHL AND JEANNE MALONEY

Health care represents a large and growing percentage of U.S. economic consumption. In order to meet the increasing demand for care, the number of health care workers will need to expand by almost 30 percent overall by 2020.

The Georgetown University Center on Education in the Workforce reported there will be approximately 5.6 million health care job vacancies from 2010 to 2020. If consideration is given to the wide range of job categories that support direct health care providers, the growth in health care and related jobs is even higher.

Region”™s needs

There is also a growing need for health care workers locally. A regional business association indicates that health care is emerging as the “the largest economic engine in the Hudson Valley, contributing $15 billion to the regional economy.”

Jeanne Maloney

Ann Rubenzahl

Changing demographics, including the increase in the older adult cohort, also are contributing to the need for health care workers, especially in long-term care facilities and related service groups. A regional planning and research organization reported that New York state”™s population as a whole will grow by only 1.3 percent by 2040, but the population of 80-plus-year-olds will grow by 42.2 percent. This growth in the older adult cohort is expected to have the most impact in upstate New York; however, the growth in Westchester County is still substantial, at nearly 30 percent growth, and surrounding counties are expected to experience even higher increases.

Along with a changing demographic landscape, vehicles for containing health care costs also will impact health care workforce needs. One such change in New York and the Hudson Valley is federal approval of New York”™s Medicaid waiver amendment, which will enable the state to allocate funds to support access to quality care for Medicaid members and also reduce costs.

Nearly six and a half-billion dollars of the waiver funds will be allocated to the Delivery Service Reform Incentive Payment program, which is designed to promote reforms that will achieve a 25 percent reduction in avoidable hospital use over five years. Examples of avoidable hospital use include emergency room use, hospital admission and hospital readmission within 30 days. The impact of the initial grants under the program has not been fully determined, but some suggest a potential shift in workforce needs from hospital to ambulatory settings.

Creating pathways

The need for health care workers includes a range of employees, from highly skilled, highly paid individuals with many years of post-secondary education to lower-skilled and lower-wage employees who provide a variety of supportive services. There are opportunities for both employers and educational institutions to address pathways for employee advancement in health care for individuals currently employed in lower-wage jobs.

In order to address the range of educational credentials required in the health care workforce, all post-secondary educational institutions play a critical role. Community colleges provide an entry-level access point for individuals interested in health care careers. Programs providing the background and skills required for entry-level health careers such as home health aide may be completed in three months or less. These programs not only provide participants with the credentials required to access health care jobs, but also address documented entry-level health care workforce needs. High growth is anticipated for health care support occupations through 2020; the demand for home health aides is expected to be especially high.

Over the past several years, attention has been given to designing educational pathways that enable individuals with entry level health care credentials to continue their education and earn additional workforce credentials and/or enroll in associate and bachelor”™s degree-level health care programs and beyond.

States across the country are employing career pathway models to both address in-demand occupations identified in local and state labor markets (Arkansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and others), and provide educational pathways that result in individuals being prepared for increasingly higher-level health care jobs that provide a livable wage.

Each step in a career pathway is designed to prepare students for the next level of employment and education. In Oregon, 17 community colleges worked in collaboration to develop certificate programs that enable participants to “blend school and work while providing opportunities to enter or return to work with increased skills and wages.” Some pathway programs also include a contextualized approach based on the state of Washington”™s Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training Program that integrates English language acquisition with programmatic content. The nationally recognized model is designed to address students”™ English language development and work skills concurrently so participants can earn credentials and be employed in a shorter period of time.

Locally, Westchester Community College provides health care programs for entry-level positions, such as home health aide, certified nursing assistant and patient care technician. These short-term workforce programs provide a pathway to degree-granting programs such as the registered nursing, radiologic technician and respiratory care programs, and many colleges also integrate a bridge program to facilitate entry into credit-earning programs. Westchester Community College is also working to offer contextualized health care programs that concurrently address English language skills and entry-level health care skill development. The contextualized courses will specifically address the educational needs of the county”™s growing immigrant population and create a larger bilingual workforce.

Entering the workforce

The transition from training/education programs into the health care workforce can be challenging. Models that foster transition for participants into health care employment reduce stress for entering health care employees and also reduce the potential for errors that jeopardize patient safety. The state of California has a number of models that fund transition to work for new nursing graduates that enhance their skills, reduce risks for patients and health care employers, and effectively address workforce needs.

Another transition-to-work model is the apprenticeship model ”” a combination of classroom instruction and work that enables individuals to learn while they earn. Most of us typically think of apprenticeships in fields other than health care, but health care apprenticeships do exist. Chesterfield General Hospital and Marlboro Park Hospital have recently partnered with Northeastern Technical College to offer an apprenticeship program for medical assistants.

In order to facilitate transition to employment in the health care field, a close relationship between educational institutions and regional business, workforce and economic development agencies is key. An example is the nearly $10 million grant recently received by the Westchester-Putnam Workforce Investment Board, which will concurrently address the needs of long-term unemployed and the workforce needs of the region”™s health care industry.

While many efforts are underway in the Hudson Valley to support the growing health care industry, an expanded strategy for linking educational institutions to employers with emerging health care workforce needs will create a win-win for job seekers and health care employers.

Ann Rubenzahl is assistant dean of continuing education and workforce development at Westchester Community College. She can be reached at 914-606-6618 or ann.rubenzahl@sunywcc.edu. Jeanne Maloney is director of special projects in the division of continuing education and workforce development at the college, and can be reached at 914-606-6799 or jeanne.maloney@sunywcc.edu.