Chase & Co. announced a $3 million grant to Advocate Charitable Foundation to launch the Healthcare Workforce Collaborative run by Advocate Health Care that will provide healthcare-focused, skill-based training for middle-skill occupations to unemployed and underemployed populations. This grant is the largest single corporate gift in Advocate’s 20-year history as an integrated health system.
Recently, JPMorgan Chase released a Chicago Skills Gap report that determined there will be more than 14,000 middle-skill job openings every year in Chicago’s healthcare sector through 2019. These middle-skill jobs require more than a high school degree, but not a Bachelor’s degree, and the average pay is higher than the region’s living wage of $18.98/hour. The report also said that the region’s workforce doesn’t have the skills to fill these new jobs.
The Healthcare Workforce Collaborative will focus on four to five middle-skill healthcare occupations that include both in-patient and out-patient jobs. The program will position graduates into employment opportunities and lay the foundation for longer-term career growth. There will be four hospitals and a number of outpatient sites that engage in the program that will launch out of Advocate Trinity Hospital in the Calumet Heights neighborhood and expand after the startup phase. More than 1,000 participants will receive training over the course of the grant.
“As a continually growing organization, Advocate is increasing our need for patient service representatives, certified medical assistants, phlebotomists, home health aides, schedulers and various technicians, among other middle-skills workers,” said Kevin Brady, chief human resources officer for Advocate Health Care. “There is a limited talented pool for certain hard-to-fill positions, and it can take
months to fill these openings with qualified, experienced candidates.
"As a not-for-profit health system, Advocate has always relied on philanthropic partnerships to fulfill our health care mission. This
investment by Chase will allow us to have a more comprehensive, systematic and strategic approach to ensuring we have the workforce required to the meet health needs of the individuals, families and communities we serve.”
Healthcare makes up 23 percent of all well-paying middle-skill online job postings in the region. It is the largest private sector employer with more than 410,000 positions. Middle-skill healthcare opportunities in the Chicago area include biomedical equipment technicians for dialysis centers and medical laboratories, physical and occupational therapy assistants, surgical technologists, and health information
managers. Bilingual candidates, in particular Spanish speakers, are highly sought by Chicago-area.
NBC News story:
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Health-Training-Program-381988471.html