Healthcare Leaders Select Seven Employers As Champions For Frontline Workers

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Seven U.S. healthcare employers have been selected as the 2018 Frontline Healthcare Worker Champions and Emerging Champions by their peers. The recognition comes in the midst of Workforce Development Month and focuses on business practices that are proven to benefit employers, employees and patients.

Apprenticeships and other opportunities to earn while you learn have been particularly effective for the champions. "This opportunity has changed my life," said Elissa Perlo, medical assistant apprentice at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire. "It's given me financial independence, confidence and a sense of purpose."

CareerSTAT, an employer-led initiative of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, marks five years of sponsoring the champion program. It recognizes employers who are making great strides to support healthcare's critical entry-level employees – nursing aides, medical assistants, food service workers, housekeepers, and others.

"When employers invest in their frontline workforce by making training and career advancement more accessible, the benefits extend to patients, to the business bottom line and to the community," said Joanne Pokaski, CareerSTAT executive committee chair and senior director of workforce development and community relations at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. "We are pleased to see these practices adopted by more healthcare employers nationally in response to a tight labor market and demand for skilled workers."

This year's champions and emerging champions have engaged supervisors as career coaches, designed employee education programs that prepare workers to advance, and established healthcare apprenticeships.

Champions

• Dartmouth-Hitchcock, Lebanon, N.H.
• District 1199C Training & Upgrading Fund, Philadelphia
• East Alabama Medical Center, Opelika, Ala.
• Washington Association of Community and Migrant Health Centers, Olympia, Wash.

Emerging Champions

• Loretto, Syracuse, N.Y.
• Southeast Louisiana Veterans Healthcare System, New Orleans
• Staten Island Performing Provider System, New York

"We congratulate these champions for their commitment to developing the careers of frontline workers," said Joyce McDanel, vice president of human resources and education of UnityPoint Health in Des Moines, Iowa, and chair of the selection committee. "These organizations have shown that this kind of investment improves retention, increases engagement and leads to the best possible care for patients."

The seven employers will be honored at CareerSTAT's Healthcare Connect conference in New Orleans in October. More information on the champion organizations is available on the CareerSTAT website.

Media Contact:
Micah Azzano
[email protected]
202.681.2329

SOURCE The National Fund for Workforce Solutions

Related Links

http://www.nationalfund.org