Health care industry stakeholders--patients, families, insurance companies, and the government--generally view the availability of high quality health care as an entitlement. For that reason, employers in the health sector have tried numerous approaches to expanding the skills of their workers and increasing their access to trained workers. They have developed new ways of organizing jobs and workers; they have upgraded the skills of currently-employed staff, and they have developed new strategies for recruiting trained workers.

To enhance the effectiveness of these ongoing efforts, the Department of Labor contracted with BPA to develop a technical assistance guide (TAG), suitable for use by workforce investment boards, One-Stop operators, employer associations, training providers, community based organizations, and other local partners. The Technical Assistance Guide builds on BPA's previous work in the area of health care workforce issues, as well as that of BPA's partners--the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW), and the National Network of Sector Practitioners (NNSP) at the National Economic Development and Law Center. The TAG provides a comprehensive approach to addressing health care skill shortage issues in a workforce area, and is organized such that many different workforce partners can understand the issues from each others' perspective. Topics addressed in the TAG include workforce trends in the health care industry/sector, engaging appropriate stakeholders in a community health care initiative, career ladders and job opportunities in different health care settings, model project approaches, planning processes and time frames, and funding sources available to assist communities in leveraging resources--i.e., foundation funding, federal educational grants and loan programs, and other funding specific to health care issues.

Dissemination of the TAG is forthcoming. For updated information, please contact
info@bpacal.com.