By Becky Ginos
The City Journals
Health care professionals from institutions across Salt Lake and Davis County came together recently for a Health Care Leadership roundtable at Davis Technical College. They discussed their professional needs and how Davis Tech programs can help produce highly skilled workers.
Topics included a need for more experienced students coming out of the program and ways to improve those programs to satisfy that need.
“It’s our gold standard to get a certified, registered MA (medical assistant),” said Ashlee Shemenski, with Tanner Clinic. “We do have another track that supports the CNA (certified nursing assistant) and more recently the EMT (emergency medical technician) basic. We have a different clinical track that they can climb up that ladder based on certifications.”
Shemenski said Tanner Clinic is capturing the entire market rather than just hyper-focusing on medical assistants.
“That program seems to be a little more challenging, a little more time-consuming,” Shemenski said. “These students want to get in, get their feet wet, and then get to the career they want. From that standpoint, we certainly hire more MAs than CNAs.
“But,” she continued, “I see value in having a CNA,” who then get additional training in phlebotomy and “then they go and get the injection course at the Catalyst Center.”
Shemenski said that she thinks they’re “pretty successful” in their hiring efforts but the problem is that applicants are “very slim.”
Hiring CNAs constitutes its own obstacle because of regulations that mandate them to work under the direction of a licensed nurse, said Jodi Buttars, practical nurse coordinator at Davis Tech.
“CNAs have to renew their certification every two years and only the licensed nurse can sign that renewal form for them,” Buttars said. “So we sometimes have them working in positions where they are not working directly under a nurse — there’s not a nurse in that office, and we’re not able to accept their renewal.”
To address the growing demand for more medical assistants and certified nurse assistants, Davis Tech is unrolling a new hybrid program and exploring additional add-ons to lure in more potential students.
“We want the maximum flexibility for all our students, [so] we’re adding the online experience, [but] a lot of students want the in-person experience,” said Davis Tech President Darrin Brush. “We’re implementing a hybrid model, [and] slowly adding that, really judiciously.”
“Because we’re talking about MAs I’d like to add radiologic technologists into this, particularly because we all know that’s an area where we don’t have enough RAD techs,” said Troy Wood, board president and CEO of Lakeview Hospital. “My understanding is if you have your MA [certification,] then you can become a limited RAD tech in a short time frame.”
“We have a limited RAD tech program here,” said Dee Weaver, director of health programs at Davis Tech, adding that it’s through the school’s community education program on campus. “It’s usually an occupational upgrade. We thought about incorporating, or maybe making it an addition to, the MA at the end if the student chooses.”
Salt Lake Community College and Weber State University are the only schools in the state that offer associate degrees, said Wood. “I think your tech colleges don’t offer any degrees.”
“The course we teach [at Davis Tech], they actually do teach positioning and some X-rays because we have an X-ray machine that is attached or an X-ray room that was attached to medical assisting when we built the Allied Health Building,” said Weaver.
Another area of concern is the shortage of surgical techs.
Weaver said that Intermountain Health and the University of Utah sponsor and direct students to Davis Tech.
“We’re getting them in and out as quickly as we can,” said Weaver. “It’s the clinicals — we seem to have a backlog in their clinicals.”
But no matter how it’s put, health professionals are looking to hire those with as much experience as possible.
“When I talk to my team about this, it’s not so much finding an apprentice-type who’s just coming out,” said Wood. “Those are easy to find … They haven’t had a job yet. I gotta get my course training and you try to put one of those with a spine surgeon or an orthopod and they’re just gonna throw a gasket.”
Everybody is always looking for an experienced person because it’s hard to put them right into the operating room, he said. “If you have great training, then you’re ahead of the game. You’re really trying to get that two-, three-year vet, even more, if you can. So maybe as they’re coming out of school, that first job might be a little harder to get.”
The group plans to meet quarterly to further discussion. The next meeting is scheduled to focus on specific competencies across programs.