Capital Area College Access Network Addresses Health Care Shortages by Designing Healthcare Pathways
The Capital Area College Access Network (CapCAN) creates a college-going culture in the Capital region by supporting college and post-secondary opportunities, readiness, participation, and completion.
Seeing an opportunity to create a new healthcare pathway in response to the shortage of healthcare workers locally and nationwide, CapCAN is partnering with local and national organizations to establish a seamless pathway from K-12 to higher education by allowing students to earn college credits and gain career preparation while in high school.
CapCAN’s partnership with Accelerate ED, a national Gates Foundation-backed initiative, promotes early credit, credential opportunities, and work-based experiences for high school students, with a focus on underrepresented, low-income, students of color, and students with disabilities in Clinton, Eaton, and Ingham Counties. Increasing student awareness about career opportunities in healthcare should spur the number of students entering healthcare fields and create a more sustainable, locally-based pool of healthcare professionals able to serve the community in the near future.
Leveraging local expertise, CapCAN is partnering with the Capital Area Health Alliance (CAHA), a tri-county coalition working to increase the quality and access to health care resources, to design a “Blueprint” to create healthcare educational pathways between K-12 to higher education and industry.
In coordination with these two partners, local school programs, and the Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs in Clinton, Eaton, and Ingham counties, CapCAN is designing and implementing a plan based on this Blueprint. The regional CTE programs are essential partners in delivering the programming and career pathways envisioned.
Another partnership with the Capital Region Technical Early College, a consortium of the three county CTE programs, is working to build more healthcare early college options by identifying opportunities to expand class sizes, adding locations in each county to make them more accessible, and aligning academic programs and clinical experiences with existing higher education partners, including Lansing Community College, Davenport University, and Ferris State University.
By creating linkages to life sciences and MedTech companies affiliated with Michigan’s Health Core, CapCAN hopes to strengthen the talent pipeline in the area by creating skill-building opportunities with employers to enhance clinical and work experiences for students.
In addition to creating these career pathways, CapCAN also initiated a regional healthcare cluster analysis to provide a baseline set of data about available degree programs, skills gaps and job availability in Mid-Michigan. The data has been shared with employers and education partners to further link systems.
Through connections to Michigan’s Health Core, CapCAN provides invaluable learning experience opportunities for students while strengthening the talent pool for the region.
Category: Talent and Workforce