Roadways to Healthcare Careers

Program Overview

Mission:  To create and implement a comprehensive recruitment, education, and employment system that will ensure an adequate supply of qualified nursing and other healthcare professionals to meet current and future healthcare needs.

Roadways to Healthcare Careers is an educational initiative focused on developing a pipeline of qualified candidates for careers in the healthcare profession. More significantly, the program is intended to serve as a recruitment, education, and employment model that can be replicated in other markets to promote workforce development in healthcare and other industries. Roadways is currently being piloted as a healthcare education program in metro-Phoenix’s East Valley communities.  Once its structure has been established and tested, it can be applied in other communities nationally.

Celebrating its first anniversary, Roadways to Healthcare Careers is governed by the East Valley Healthcare Education Consortium, comprised of Chandler Regional Medical Center, Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Chandler Unified School District, Gilbert Public Schools, and the Boys and Girls Club of the East Valley. A four-year university is soon to be added.  Roadways to Healthcare Careers is supported philanthropically through the CHW Foundation – East Valley.

The pilot program’s focus on healthcare is a reflection of the substantial shortage of healthcare workers in the state of Arizona, and the Consortium’s desire to solve a dire community problem. Arizona faces a major social crisis, as the state only employs 628 nurses per 100,000 residents, compared to the national average of 782 nurses. In the East Valley alone, demand for hospital beds continues to rise, with an estimated 900 beds needed in the next seven years, yet the nursing candidate pool cannot fulfill staffing needs. The lack of qualified nursing candidates results, in part, from a teaching population that is dwindling as fast as the need for new healthcare professionals grows.

Roadways to Healthcare Careers is transforming healthcare by identifying and implementing creative solutions that will expand the population of educators and employment candidates in health-related professions. The program engages and encourages junior high students through college-age young adults to pursue healthcare careers, with the goal of hiring quality staff to accommodate our community’s growing population. Additionally, the program provides financial support to existing healthcare workers pursuing continuing education, such that they can be re-careered to high-demand roles as healthcare educators.

Reliant on philanthropy for its sustainability, and currently funded by investments from each Consortium partner, Roadways to Healthcare Careers has already attracted 100 students to its After-School Academy, which provides junior high students with curriculum guidance and exposure to the healthcare field through hospital-based volunteer opportunities. Additionally, three scholarships will be awarded to CHW employees in the East Valley, as part of a flexible work/study program supported by the hospitals.

For more information about the Roadways to Healthcare Careers, contact Program Director Jennifer Steele at 480.728.2027 or Jennifer.Steele@chw.edu.