CHILLICOTHE – Adena Health and Shawnee State University are joining forces in a new education partnership that will help meet the growing demand for health care professionals.
The two organizations are expanding their existing relationship in a new effort to establish an academic campus for Shawnee State’s College of Health & Human Services at Adena’s PACCAR Medical Education Center in Chillicothe.
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By first exploring nursing and radiology technology, the initiative has the potential to provide education and training in approximately half a dozen healthcare professions.
Other disciplines expected to be rolled out as the partnership develops include medical laboratory technology, assistant physiotherapist, respiratory therapy and occupational therapy.
For local students, the new partnership will expand access to the educational programs they want without the travel time, allowing them to build relationships and become immersed in a real healthcare environment. For Adena Health, it will provide a pool of potential candidates to meet the future staffing needs facing hospitals across the country. For Shawnee State, it provides additional space to meet student demand for those programs.
“By being able to offer this curriculum on our campus, we can welcome students to train here, gain their clinical experience here and hopefully serve in an open role here as efforts to meet the needs of the community continue growing,” said Adena Health President and CEO Jeff Graham in a press release.
“The best thing we can do is recruit local talent and keep it in south and south central Ohio,” said Eric Braun, president of Shawnee State University. “We have a lot of people who want to stay professionally in the region, so the more we can offer these types of attractive offers, the better we can retain this local talent.”
The initiative will not impact Adena’s existing education and training partnerships with other area colleges and universities, nor will it impact Shawnee State’s relationships with other regional hospitals.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, this country’s health care industry will add about 1.8 million job openings annually over the next decade, but a labor shortage is expected to number in the hundreds of thousands. Access to programs like the one this partnership will create can help address this discrepancy regionally.
Shawnee State is working with required accreditation and third-party regulatory approval organizations to explore potential opportunities and develop timelines.
This article originally appeared in Chillicothe Gazette: Adena Health and Shawnee State University enter into education partnership
