A survey of allied health programs at California community colleges casts doubts on the state’s ability to produce the healthcare workers it will need in coming years.
The survey, conducted in November and December of 2010 by Goodwin Simon Strategic Research, includes phone interviews with 33 deans of almost 100 health programs at community colleges around the state and was funded by a grant to Fenton Communications from The California Wellness Foundation.
The survey focused specifically on programs for the approximately 50 allied health professions (such as laboratory and x-ray technicians, nursing aides, respiratory therapists and medical secretaries) that make up 60 percent of all healthcare jobs.
[Some health systems are outsourcing allied health staff; one healthcare finance official wonders if all healthcare workers are paid too much]
According to the results, 72 percent of deans reported that allied health training programs are their school’s most sought-after, and 97 percent reported that those graduates are usually successful in finding employment in their field.
However, only 6 percent of colleges were able to accept all qualified applicants for allied health programs in 2009 and 2010, and only one in four accepted all or most. In fact, one in four community colleges had to eliminate one or more allied health training programs during the past two years, while one out of five reduced the number of slots in their programs.
“It is clear from our interviews that community colleges have struggled during the economic downturn to offer students – and employers – all the programs they would like,” said Amy Simon, lead researcher and partner at GSSR.
When asked why colleges had to turn away qualified applicants, a majority of deans cited a lack of funding as “extremely” or “very important” (64 percent), in addition to the specific lack of clinical space to help students finish their coursework (53 percent) and lack of funds to hire instructors (57 percent).
According to Simon, previous research suggests California will need approximately 988,000 allied health workers by 2030, yet the state’s education system is only on track to train 634,000.
Simon said one potential solution to the lack of clinical space and instructors is through increased partnerships with healthcare providers. Indeed, 65 percent of deans said too few partnerships with healthcare providers was an extremely or very important reason for rejecting qualified applicants.
The survey found that some public-private partnerships already exist throughout the state, with healthcare providers providing various types of support, equipment and/or expertise to local colleges to help increase the training capacity of their allied health programs.
For example, MemorialCare, a not-for-profit healthcare system that includes four southern California hospitals, realized that nearly half of its respiratory therapists were nearing retirement. At the same time, Orange Coast College, the Costa Mesa community college that supplies all of the county’s respiratory therapy graduates, lacked clinical instructors.
Through a partnership, MemorialCare now provides and pays for a respiratory therapist instructor and has helped with student recruitment, stipend processes and economic assistance for qualified students who work for them for at least two years. OCC, in return, has expanded the number of students in the program to meet the hospitals’ needs.
In addition to producing 24 additional graduates between 2008 and 2009, MemorialCare estimates that hiring OCC graduates instead of contractor replacements will save nearly $1.4 million in four years.