Crain's Chicago reports: Cook County Health, City Colleges to train 1,000 health care workers with $5M from Pritzker Traubert Foundation

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Cook County Health and City Colleges of Chicago are partnering to train and hire 1,000 health care workers over the next three years, an effort funded by a $5 million investment from the Pritzker Traubert Foundation that aims to ease chronic staffing shortages at the city’s largest public health provider.

With health care providers facing down severe staffing shortages, there is a growing trend toward partnerships between educators and health systems that give entry-level employees a clear career path and job waiting for them when they get out of school.

The City Colleges program, HealthCatalyst Chicago, was announced this morning as the winner of the Chicago Talent Challenge, a funding initiative designed to put low-income workers into good jobs in industries that need workers the most.

The funding comes from the Pritzker Traubert Foundation, a workforce development organization run by Penny Pritzker, former U.S. Commerce secretary, and her husband, Dr. Bryan Traubert.

The City Colleges-Cook County Health program is expected to train Chicagoans at Malcolm X College and in on-site training at Provident Hospital, with the goal of placing 1,000 into health care jobs over the next three years and an additional 400 positions a year in succeeding years.

In addition to $5 million in seed funding for community college education, Cook County Health estimates it could realize an estimated $1 million in cost savings, part of which it may use to fund further City Colleges efforts.

And, City Colleges of Chicago Chancellor Juan Salgado said, as enrollment increases in health care programs, the college system will reinvest tuition revenue to further expand training capacity.

Salgado said the city colleges are uniquely suited to move students quickly into public health roles, at Cook County and at other health systems in the city.

“You’re actually solving for something, at one particular place, which is so important because it starts to lay a roadmap,” Salgado said. “And, we’ll be doing it at (Provident) hospital itself, so students will be fully immersed in the environment.

The strength of collaboration between the college system and the health system, which had already been underway, fit in well with the application for the Pritzker Traubert Foundation’s challenge.

“We knew we had a winner because we had been working with Cook County Health and dreaming about solving for their need, and the leadership (at CCH) was as deeply committed as we are,” Salgado said. “Their need is the need of patients in Cook County, and they are our students and family of our students. And the jobs go to the same members of the community.”