Life Sciences

The Coalition for Aging Services of Lackawanna County is a long-term partnership of over 35 members dedicated to facilitating collaboration among aging service providers. It has focused for many years on consumer issues and promulgation of upgraded services within long-term care facilities. The mission of this partnership is to promote the provision and development of services to older adults in Lackawanna County through advocacy, education, and action.

Pennsylvania Bio serves as a catalyst to ensure Pennsylvania is a global leader in biosciences by developing a cohesive community that unites the state’s bio-pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostic, laboratory testing, and related industry strengths. PA Bio provides leadership in statewide efforts to attract, educate, and retain a diverse, high-quality biosciences workforce. The mission of this partnership is to replicate the successful model formed in Southeastern Pennsylvania to the Southwestern, Lehigh Valley and South Central regions.

This exploratory partnership project focuses on three specific industries in the biomedical manufacturing cluster: surgical and medical instrument manufacturing; surgical appliance and supplies manufacturing; and physical, engineering, and biological research. The companies in these industries are typically small but have a large number of highly trained and educated workers. Two WIBs will assist in outreach and coordination in their areas to help advance these skill sets once a determination has been made.

The Life Science industry has been identified as one of Chester County’s growing sectors, employing over 18,500 workers. Numerous human resources challenges and labor shortages are faced by the companies; to meet these challenges, the partnership will provide a full range of workforce development activities to build employee competencies and capacities with appropriate hands-on training that is cost-effective, timely, and meeting industry needs.

This partnership of five local workforce investment boards, multiple area hospitals, educational institutions, unions, and health care organizations was organized in 2003. In 2005, it developed the Biotechnology Human Capital Investment Project as a collaborative effort to support the workforce needs of the biotechnology sector in Southeastern Pennsylvania. This project was undertaken to provide manufacturing and project management training to the staff of Philadelphia-area biotechnology firms and has expanded quickly from four companies to more than a dozen.

This partnership is comprised of four of Crozer-Keystone Health Systems’ acute care facilities in Delaware County, Widener University, and Newman College. The partnership was formed to address the critical training needed to support the expanding emergency care services in the region. The program is designed to create a formalized training program that will create an accelerated didactic and clinical education program. It will initially train 20 graduate incumbent RNs to become emergency room specialists.

Through this partnership, companies are working together to enhance the competitiveness of the health care industry by developing improved training programs that will lead to career ladders, reduced recruitment costs, and improved wages. Work will focus on developing a career ladder pilot for health care workers at Children’s Hospital. Additionally, training programs will be delivered for surgical technicians, pharmacy workers, respiratory care, and radiation therapy.

The partnership’s mission is to align education and workforce development programs to meet the skill needs of health care employers and to attract and retain skilled employees in the Northern Tier Region. The partnership plans to execute this mission by identifying employers’ training needs and skill gaps, facilitating employers to come together for training and education needs, collaborating with secondary schools, parents, and career counselors, and developing new career ladders to enable entry-level workers the opportunity to improve skills and advance in the workplace.

Over the past two years the Health Care Committee has been working with the Kinzua Regional Healthcare Alliance to align resources to meet the growing demand for health care workers.

The National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, District 1199C, in partnership with the Philadelphia WIB, is working to deal with the critical needs for workers in the health care industry. This partnership is comprised of over 54 employers that are providers of mental health care services anf for which employee turnover is one of their greatest challenges.

The goal of this partnership is to develop a blue-print for expanding participation in the training program set up by the Taft-Hartley training fund established by SEIU Local 1199P and Beverly Enterprises to additional employers and their employees.

The partnership has four objectives:

The goal of this partnership is to recruit and train Asian-American immigrants to become health care workers through proper training, including Vocational English as a Second Language, and to assist with job placement in the field. Penn Asian Senior Services—PASSi—will work in partnership with regional health care providers and the Montgomery County WIB in recruiting and training entry-level worker in areas such as Certified Home Health Aides and Certified Nursing Assistant’s with the ultimate goal of building additional career pathways.

The Bucks County Workforce Investment Board, Life Science Career Alliance, and the Bucks County Health Improvement Partnership have organized this partnership to help local hospitals and long-term care facilities address common and organizational human resource challenges, including recruiting new workers, retaining incumbent workers, and providing on-the-job training. To ensure that the strategic goals of the partnership are reached, a special taskforce will be created between the Bucks County WIB and the Bucks County Health improvement Partnership.

The goal of this partnership is to develop a responsive, demand-driven system that can produce measurable changes, while advancing the education and diversity of the health care workforce. This regional collaboration of health care providers and educational institutions seeks to improve management and supervisory skills, aid in the retention/recruitment practices of employers, and assist in the recruitment and training process of home health care providers.

PathWaysPA developed this initiative to address the human resource needs of the health care industry in Delaware County, while creating opportunities for low-income individuals to move to self-sustaining employment.

The partnership addresses the workforce challenges faced by acute and long-term care facilities and seeks to:

The Tri-County Health Care Consortium developed a multi-faceted training program to address the skill gaps identified by the health care industry. A media campaign was deployed to attract new employers as well as increase the awareness in the community of health care careers.