Partnerships Are the Key to Tackling Healthcare Workforce Issues

On a recent The EdUp Experience podcast, I had the amazing opportunity to join Joe Sallustio, EdD and Van Ton-Quinlivan to discuss Futuro Health 's transformative work to bring together a workforce development ecosystem to graduate 10,000 allied health professionals by 2024. As I speak regularly with healthcare leaders, I continue to hear that one of the major disruptions facing their healthcare system today and well into the future deals with workforce shortages. Additionally, I hear this directly from my graduate students at Moravian University , as a majority of them serve as Registered Nurses and Healthcare Leaders.

During my time in healthcare administration, I was fortunate to work closely with East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania and Northampton Community College to forge partnerships that were focused on building new pathways in nursing, EMS, allied health, and even clinical research. This was many years ago now, but it reminds me that in healthcare today and well into the future; we must be focused in developing a workforce development ecosystem to solve what truly is a challenge in every healthcare organization in all communities of our nation. This ecosystem is vital as it brings together healthcare, higher education, K-12, government, workforce development, and other training providers.

We recently learned of a similar model from Earl Buford that was rolled out by The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, which encompasses state agencies, colleges and universities, employers, and K-12 educators to manage the critical talent shortage in healthcare. As a leader that has been privileged to serve in both healthcare and higher education, I can speak to this very issue from firsthand experience. It is critical that we bring higher education and healthcare together through partnerships, to advance the #futureofeducation, #futureofwork, and #futureoflearning.

With that said, we must also work with healthcare to further see the value of workforce pathways and stackable credentials, and that must include their embrace of skills-based certificates and certifications in the same manner that they do already with degrees. Without this level of understanding, the workforce challenges will only further worsen, and it will not allow the power of partnerships and a workforce ecosystem to work towards solving one of our society's most pressing issues.

Please stay tuned for The EdUp Experience podcast, which will be out soon, and I would absolutely welcome your feedback and thoughts as we work together to solve one of healthcare's most pressing disruptions. You can reach me at [email protected].