Developing a Continuum of Community Partnerships to Foster Students’ Transition into the Health Care Work Force
Pam Danner, MBA, Program Director, West Texas Area Health Education Center Program. Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center., Theresa Cruz, Director, Rural Health Division, Office of Rural Community Affairs
Presented at the Lubbock Conference
Effectively engaging underrepresented young people in career development requires focused attention from not only parents and educators, but also community and economic development leaders. The role of health care infrastructure and workforce in a community’s long term development cannot be overstated. With changing demographics, which include a population that is aging and will require more health care services as well as a population that is increasingly Hispanic, it is crucial that communities understand the population trends that will challenge their workforce as well as their health and social services infrastructure and identify opportunities to effectively address these challenges.
The West Texas Area Health Education Center Program, and its regional centers in Abilene, Amarillo, Midland and Plainview, have developed a continuum of health career promotion activities, clinical training experiences for health professions students, and practice support for current health care providers that facilitate communities’ fostering the growth of their own health care workforce. This growth requires a network of relationships between educators, health professionals and hospital administrators, civic organizations, colleges, and community leaders.
The Office of Rural Community Affairs facilitates and coordinates the use of available resources to help rural Texans enhance their quality of life, achieve sustained economic growth, and strengthen local healthcare infrastructure and systems of care to better meet the needs, challenges, and priorities of rural Texas. The Office develops, supports, and coordinates programs and services that 1) enhance the ability of rural Texas communities to improve access to equitable, high quality health services and 2) enhance the communities’ capacity to plan and direct intervention on key health domains which have the greatest impact on the health status of local citizens
Objectives:
Participants will be able to
- Assess their own community’s health care workforce needs
- Identify opportunities for relationship building within the community and region to foster education and career goal setting and attainment for underrepresented youth.
- Begin developing action steps to implement interventions to meet the needs of their community’s young people in a continuum that sustains their health care workforce.