With big plans for the future and an even bigger sum of money to spend, Pima County’s health care workforce is on the road to improvement.
Thanks to federal grant money recently rewarded to Pima Community College and the University of Arizona, new plans and resources are being set in place to improve health care quality in the community.
Through President Barack Obama’s new health care law, PCC received $18.5 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help provide residents with the necessary training programs to begin working in the health care industry.
“The money will help low-income students pay for tuition, fees, transportation and childcare,” said Paul Schwalbach, PCC marketing and public relations coordinator.
The money will also benefit PCC’s 15 other health care programs by helping to fund more evening, weekend and online classes. Additionally, they will also help developmental education, job placement and tutoring, he said.
The school will partner with health care employers and community agencies, such as Pima County OneStop, to assist low-income residents in learning new job skills.
“Health care issues are a crucial concern for Pima County, and are of tremendous importance to the low-income community,” said Hank Atha, deputy county administrator for Community Services and Economic Development.
While many of the details for the new project are still being worked out, Schwalbach remains hopeful that the grant will help improve the quality of health care in Pima County.
“It will set the community’s unemployed and underemployed workers, veterans and needy residents on a path to better lives through jobs in a growing profession,” Schwalbach said.
The start date, number of students who will participate, and the specific criteria for qualifying have yet to be determined.
Meanwhile, the UA’s Zuckerman College of Public Health was awarded two federal grants to start public-health training centers.
Mountain West Preparedness and Emergency Response Learning Center received $4.7 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The center will provide free online training to mid-level public health professionals such as learning to create effective plans for dealing with flu outbreaks.
Face-to-face training for partner-requested activities will also be offered.
The centers’ partners include the four-corner states – Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado, as well as many tribal nations.
The Arizona Public Health Training Center received $3.2 million from the new federal health care law to give free or subsidized training to public-health workers and groups that assist under-served people.
With this grant, graduate students will be able to receive stipends and resources for doing projects with county health departments.
“It’s a great opportunity for the UA to continue to work to assist the county and state public health professionals in our region,” said Jeff Burgess, UA professor and principal investigator of the Mountain West center.
“It expands our resources to be able to help them do their job as effectively as possible.”
