Southwest Iowa Healthcare Sector Board
July 1, 2015 Meeting Notes
Members in attendance: Paul Crane (Primrose Retirement), Pat Davison (Clarinda Regional Health
Center), Joel Dougherty (One World Community Health Centers), Arleatta Bartelson (Elm Crest
Retirement Community) and Allison Bruckner (Cass County Health Systems), and Darlene Mc Martin
(Pott County Veteran’s Affairs).
Others in attendance: Tina Larney, Kristen O’Brien, Pam Southworth (IWCC); Terry Bailey (CB Chamber)
Mary Warren (M. Warren Consulting).
Welcome:
Tina Larney, Continuing Education Health Coordinator at IWCC, welcomed the members
and reviewed the agenda. New members Joel Dougherty, Arleatta Bartelson, and Allison Bruckner were
introduced.
Appointment of Co-Chairpersons:
At the last meeting, Pat Davison and Paul Crane volunteered to
serve as co-chairs of the board. At today’s meeting the board agreed to formalize the appointment of
Paul and Pat to chair the board.
Charter Adoption:
Mary reviewed the changes to the Board Charter that was revised to reflect the
in-depth discussion about board goals that was held at the last meeting. The charter was modified to
re-rank the short term goals and align them with the related long term goals. The board agreed to
accept the updated charter, which will be posted on the website, www.workforcealignment.com
IWCC Healthcare Pathways: Kristen O’Brien, IWCC Healthcare Pathways Navigator, provided
information on the Pathways programs offered by the college. The Iowa legislature appropriates
funding for the PACE and Gap programs, which are designed to offer short term training that will help
unemployed and underemployed Iowans get training in high demand fields. Three week, pre-training
programs have been created for CNA, Medical Billing and Coding, and Pharmacy Tech. The courses
include CPR, First Aid, medical math, medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, and soft skills
training, and are designed to help the students successfully complete their chosen certificate programs.
In the past two years approximately 250 students have participated in the PACE and Gap programs.
Workforce Training Needs: At the past two sector board meetings, business members have
identified a number of workforce needs. Iowa Western convened a group of staff who work with health
care non-credit and credit programs to review the list of needs and begin discussions about how IWCC
can help address them. IWCC will:
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Look into a certificate/add-on program for CNAs for psyche aid
After feedback from the first two meetings – credit side is focused on better preparing students
in the areas of:
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1) Professionalism, 2) customer service, & 3) communication skills while the CE side is interested
in developing a ‘professionalism’ workshop or ‘skill enhancement’ workshop that focuses on
these areas
Identify 3 opportunities in late summer/fall to do mini career fairs
Continuing Health Education will provide an outline of the supervisory training for staff at
healthcare facilities that was done with Heartland Workforce Solutions
Continuing Health Education will draft an outline for a ‘Medical IT’ course for the board to
review
IWCC staff will report on progress in the above areas at the August 19th meeting.
Training Gap Analysis: Tina presented highlights from the IWCC Economic Overview & Program Gap
Analysis prepared by the Economic Modeling Specialists Inc. IWCC hired EMSI to analyze labor market
data for our region (7 counties in Iowa and 3 in the Omaha area). The report “… weighs the educational
output of IWCC and other regional institutions against the number of job openings related to the
institutions’ program offerings to determine whether an oversupply or undersupply of skilled workers
exists. The goal of the analysis is to provide IWCC with relevant data and information that it can use
when solving problems and making decisions about current and future program development.”
Findings included:
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Largest surplus for certificate level programs: LPN (data used shows 77 openings/yr & 258
completers/yr w/ 131 of those completers from IWCC & a total surplus of 181)
Largest surplus at the associate degree level: RNs (data used shows 157 openings/yr with 258
completers/yr w/ 98 of those finishing w/ an IWCC degree and a total surplus of 102)
Areas of opportunity:
o Nursing Assistants (211 annual openings, 0 annual completers – gap of 200; NOTE:
IWCC trained 357 CNAs in FY 13 & 300 in FY 14 so this data does not appear to be
accurate)
o Medical & Clinical Lab Techs (15 annual openings, 0 annual completers – gap of 14)
o Phlebotomists (13 annual openings, 0 annual completers – gap of 13)
o Other possible opportunities with a handful of openings & no completers is Health
Technologists & Technicians (all other category), OT assistants, cardiovascular
technologists & technicians, and medical equipment repairers
Limitations in the analysis: only looks at traditional EDU/schools as pipelines for training the
workforce and not capable of considering other pipelines such as unemployed and industrytrained individuals
The board discussed the reported oversupply of RNs and LPNs, which they did not feel was true for the
entire area, or for all types of employers. Comments included:
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Some members noted a significant shortage of nurses and CNAs who are bi-lingual.
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Most nursing programs require students to complete CNA training as a pre-requisite to enter
the program, but most of them never work as nursing assistants so the number of CNA
completers doesn’t accurately reflect the number of trained job seekers for that occupation.
There is a large need for Radiology/X-ray/Ultrasound techs in rural areas. Rural areas also need
techs that can repair medical equipment.
Medical Coders – With the transition to ICD 10 comes this fall, students need to be trained in
that. There is also a need for medical transcriptionists/scribes.
Even though many organizations offer tuition assistance, a small percentage of employees take
advantage of the benefit.
Pat offered to send information to other members about the Page County Healthcare Career
Fair that is held each fall for high school students.
Next Meeting:
The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, August 19 at 3pm. Members are
encouraged to send agenda suggestions or comments to Tina (tlarney@iwcc.edu).
Save the Date - 2015 SW Iowa Healthcare Sector Board Meetings:
August 19
October 21
December 16