Schools reacting to changing health care landscape

BRIDGING THE GAP: Student Mine McClanaghan, above in the black shirt, listens to New England Tech instructor Linda Underhill during a clinical-documentation class. / PBN PHOTO/DAVID LEVESQUE
BRIDGING THE GAP: Student Mine McClanaghan, above in the black shirt, listens to New England Tech instructor Linda Underhill during a clinical-documentation class. / PBN PHOTO/DAVID LEVESQUE

As head cheerleader for reinventing the state’s economy, Keith W. Stokes, the executive director of the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, recently called the health and life sciences sector, which he dubbed “meds and eds,” a key economic engine for job growth driving Rhode Island’s recovery.
His boss, Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee, who had preceded Stokes at the podium at a recent conference, “The Rhode Island Business Environment: The Economy by the Numbers,” held on March 13 at Bryant University, offered his recipe for success: a renewed investment by the state in education, addressing the huge gaps in Rhode Island’s skilled, trained workforce, to be paid for in part by his proposed increase in the sales tax.
While Bryant economists at the conference agreed that the health care cluster in Rhode Island has great promise for future job growth, there is no consensus on the road map to get there – or on how best to overcome the skills gap.
Some Rhode Island private educational institutions are not waiting: Johnson & Wales University and New England Institute of Technology are already moving ahead, retooling their academic programs to meet the expected future demand in health care jobs.
Health care is currently the largest sector of Rhode Island’s economy, with nearly 67,000 employees, about 13 percent of Rhode Island’s workforce, and employment levels are expected to grow through 2018, according to Rick Brooks, the executive director of the Governor’s Workforce Board.
But Brooks cautioned that the playing field in Rhode Island is shifting.
“Changes in the health care sector – such as payment methods, health and wellness initiatives, rates of uninsurance, and medical advances in technology and pharmaceuticals – have begun to change how and where health care services are delivered,” he said. As a result, he continued, “hospital volumes and revenue have declined, as has hiring. Total hospital employment [in Rhode Island] has dropped by 500 employees between 2010 and 2011.”
The move from inpatient to outpatient services is more than a trend. Christopher Murphy, spokesman for Steward Health Care, the pending purchaser of Landmark Medical Center in Woonsocket, told Providence Business News that the success of Steward’s business model for the delivery of health care services “depends on keeping people out of the hospital.”
And, because of increased emphasis on outpatient care, Brooks, said, “labor-market demands are likely to shift to those occupations that are more widely used in outpatient settings, including medical assistants, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, physical therapists and home health aides.”
At New England Tech in East Greenwich, since January, evening classes have been a hub of activity for a new training program in the necessary skills in health IT and electronic medical records. The training is underwritten by federal grants. To date, some 277 students have completed the classes, with another 125 currently enrolled, according to Steven H. Kitchin, vice president of corporate education and training at New England Tech.
In addition, New England Tech has also begun an online program to enable licensed nurses to earn a degree that will position them to be more involved in patient care and decision-making.
New England Tech is now in its third year of offering a master’s of science in occupational therapy, the only master’s-level program at the school, and the only master’s for occupational therapy in Rhode Island. The profession is experiencing rapid growth in response to the need for care of an aging population. In Rhode Island, in 2010 a salary of $65,000 was the mean for a master’s-level occupational therapist, according to Rebecca Simon, the academic-fieldwork coordinator for the New England Institute of Technology’s occupational therapy department.
“Candidly, the college is always looking for labor-market opportunities,” Kitchin said. “We are driven by our mission to prepare graduates for good-paying jobs in emerging sectors.”
Johnson & Wales, under the leadership of Jeffrey D. Senese, vice president for academic affairs, has begun a new program to train physician’s assistants. “When I came here three years ago, I realized that Rhode Island was one of four states that didn’t have such a program. It fits our mission, there is a high demand for these professionals,” Senese said.
The program is scheduled to begin in September, and once it is up and running, it will graduate a class of about 45 physician’s assistants, a job with a median income of about $81,000 a year, according to Senese. As part of the program, Johnson & Wales is building its own anatomy laboratory.
Senese does not see Johnson & Wales competing with Rhode Island College or the University of Rhode Island. Rather, he sees an opportunity for collaboration, particularly if plans for a new building in Providence’s Knowledge District move forward to house a joint nursing program.
At the state level, there is a coordinated effort to address and overcome the current skills gap. The Governor’s Workforce Board is working closely with three health care industry partners – HealthCentric Advisors, Stepping Up, and the Hospital Association of Rhode Island – to identify high-growth, high-demand health care occupations, and to ensure that Rhode Islanders have access to education and training programs that will prepare them for these jobs, according to Brooks. •

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