By Lisa Le Fevre and Val Pedroza

This blog post features strategies being employed by two regional cross-sector consortia for developing collaborative healthcare pathways. These consortia are addressing employer and student workforce and training needs to bolster access to in-demand healthcare careers.

Rural communities and small cities across the country are facing similar dilemmas despite regional contexts: Healthcare employers frequently cannot find enough qualified workers, and students who want healthcare careers often lack a clear path to get them. To address these concerns, some community colleges in these areas are engaging in cross-sector collaboration and consortia-based workforce development efforts. These efforts bring together partners across secondary institutions, community colleges and universities, and healthcare employers and organizations. Together, partners work to build capacity, training, and skills that enable students to access jobs leading to quality, sustainable careers and to thrive in healthcare careers.

Since 2022, evaluators with WestEd’s Center for Economic Mobility have been following a portfolio of consortia projects funded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Strengthening Community Colleges (SCC) Training Grants Program. Now well into its fifth round of implementation, the SCC grant program supports projects in developing innovative sector-based career pathways that meet employers’ and students’ workforce training needs, expanding hands-on learning opportunities, and promoting program and system capacity.

A closer look at two recent consortium efforts reveals strategies implemented to build healthcare pathway partnerships; expand student access, entry, and stepping stones; and expand technology-based learning.

Different Regions, Common Healthcare Development Needs

As third-party evaluators, teams from WestEd’s Center for Economic Mobility are working with Columbia College and Ozarks Technical Community College (Ozarks Tech) to provide developmental evaluations of their SCC healthcare pathway projects. Both projects are consortium efforts taking part in the fifth round of grant funding.

Columbia College serves California’s rural Mother Lode region, encompassing four counties spanning 5,380 square miles. Over a third of healthcare workers in the region are nearing retirement, and regional employers struggle to fill essential positions such as nursing assistants, medical assistants, and phlebotomists.

Ozarks Tech serves 15 counties in Southwest Missouri. In 2024, the region’s nursing vacancy rates hit 17 percent and radiology technologist vacancies exceeded 20 percent, well above national averages at the time.

Despite their differences, both institutions identified similar needs to address the healthcare employment and workforce challenges in their area. These needs include the following:

  • building program capacity by increasing enrollment, modernizing facilities or equipment, and expanding faculty and partnerships
  • bolstering access and opportunities, particularly for student engagement, completion, and employment
  • connecting and leveraging systems and partnerships for education, employer, and workforce collaboration

Strategies to Address Needs

Strategy 1: Building or Strengthening Partnerships

Both projects are heavily invested in convening regional interest holders, employers, workforce boards, secondary schools, and 4-year institutions as they work to develop or expand programming. This investment aligns with evidence-based effective practices for cross-sector and cross-segment collaboration, particularly because consortia are leveraging existing partnerships and adding to them rather than starting from scratch. Columbia has formalized the Sierra Healthcare Industry Partnership into the work while Ozarks Tech has helped steward the Alliance for Healthcare Education as part of their project efforts. These partnerships provide valuable input, communication, and networks. They help community colleges learn about the skills employers actually need, secure clinical training sites, and support graduate placement and job access after students complete their programs.

Strategy 2: Expanding Access and Creating Flexible Pathways for Training and Employment

Both community colleges are working to document and address student access gaps for healthcare training and employment and are developing targeted strategies to close those gaps. Columbia College, for example, identified disproportionately low enrollment and completion rates for regional populations. Ozarks Tech found that students from low-income households were accepted into selective healthcare programs at lower rates and completed those programs at lower rates than their peers.

The response from both institutions has been concrete: expanded access to support and services, including navigation and counseling services, tuition assistance, holistic support, and community partnerships with organizations for regional students. Ozarks Tech’s collaboration with the Community Partnership of the Ozarks and Columbia’s partnerships with Mariposa, Amador, Alpine, Calaveras, and Tuolumne Health are examples of relationships with community partners that reach students within the region, the community, and healthcare field.

Just as both community colleges and consortia projects are intentionally building meaningful healthcare training and employment access, both are also intentionally creating multiple entry points and stepping stones for pathway progression. For example, neither project has tried to funnel every student into a single pathway. Both are looking to build stackable, flexible systems in which students can enter pathways at a secondary school level, earn a short-term certificate, and continue building credentials over time. A certified nursing assistant can become a licensed practical nurse. A phlebotomy certificate can be a stepping stone to a registered nursing degree.

This intentionality is student friendly and student centered. It is also a practical strategy for employers who need workers at every level, from entry-level support staff to registered nurses, and who often prefer to cultivate their workforce rather than compete for scarce talent.

Strategy 3: Expanding Technology-Based Learning

Simulation technology, hybrid coursework, and flexible scheduling are necessary tools and innovations for healthcare learning and professions. Technology-based learning provides students with opportunities to safely try clinical practices, build confidence, and refine skills. It also expands flexible scheduling and access for learning when it might be otherwise impossible. For example, both colleges recognize that students from low-income households face barriers that fixed, daytime, in-person programs often cannot accommodate. In response, Ozarks Tech has integrated hybrid instruction and block scheduling into its nursing program. Columbia College has prioritized expanding simulation labs so that clinical training can happen closer to home, while Ozarks Tech is leveraging state-of-the art, high-fidelity patient simulators for student learning.

Leveraging Proven Strategies Rather Than Reinventing Healthcare Pathways

Community colleges do not necessarily need to reinvent healthcare education and pathways to address regional employers’ and students’ workforce needs. Columbia College and Ozarks Tech are leveraging evidence-based practices found within cross-sector and cross-segment education and workforce initiatives. These include investing in strategies that build or strengthen new or established partnerships; creating multiple access points and stepping stones for training and employment; and expanding technology-based learning for flexible and simulated practice, learning, and skill development.

Do you want to learn more about building healthcare workforce partnerships at your institution? Visit WestEd’s Center for Economic Mobility or reach out through our Get Support intake form.

Lisa Le Fevre, PhD, is a senior program associate and research manager with WestEd’s Center for Economic Mobility. Her extensive experience includes evaluating state- and federally funded grant projects; workforce development projects; innovation strategies and systems change; and complex, multipartner programs. Le Fevre is skilled in designing qualitative research, performing data collection and analysis, and working with diverse populations across educational systems. She has provided leadership for three Strengthening Community Colleges Training Grants evaluations.

 Val Pedroza, MA, is a senior research associate and research manager in WestEd’s Center for Economic Mobility. He has over 20 years of experience designing and leading evaluations of workforce development, education, and public-sector programs. Pedroza specializes in mixed-methods evaluation, integrating advanced qualitative analysis with quantitative approaches to capture the lived experiences behind the data. Pedroza provides leadership for several Strengthening Community Colleges Training Grants evaluations.