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Health Care Careers Center Gets Major Donation from UCHealth

The health care industry is experiencing a critical shortage of qualified health care professionals, both locally and nationally.

This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

The health care industry is experiencing a critical shortage of qualified health care professionals, both locally and nationally. The new Health Care Careers Center at the Front Range Community College campus in Fort Collins, which broke ground in May this year, will offer a diverse selection of health care career paths, and provide state-of-the-art training facilities.

It was announced this week that UCHealth has pledged $250,000 to help FRCC build the new Health Care Careers Center.  This is one of the largest donations yet for the new facility, which is set to open in the summer of 2020. 

UCHealth’s contribution is “an investment in future nursing resources to care for the entire community”, according to Grace Taylor, vice president of operations at UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital and Medical Center of the Rockies. “Our nursing workforce is one of the most important components of UCHealth,” Taylor said.

“We are pleased to support this exciting educational project to secure the development of future nurses in our local community of northern Colorado.” Jean Runyon, vice president of FRCC’s Larimer Campus added. “We could not have built this high-tech facility without community partners like UCHealth. Their investment will help us meet growing local health care needs by training the frontline workers who give people high-quality care when they need it most.”

Projected Health Care Careers Center in FRCC Longmont Photo: Front Range Community College

The two-story, 61,000 square-foot Health Care Careers Center (HCCC) will address key healthcare workforce needs in northern Colorado. The HCCC will provide a centralized, technology-rich learning environment within a state-of-the-art facility for all of the college’s health and nursing programs. The new building will allow FRCC’s Larimer Campus to continue to provide a highly qualified workforce to meet local healthcare needs and to support anticipated job growth in healthcare fields.

Not only does FRCC already provide its students with quality education, it also collaborates with industry to ensure that students are prepared to enter the workforce and advance their careers. 

FRCC has actively encouraged industry participation in developing its curriculum and the new health care center. Associates in Family Medicine (AFM), whose medical services cover the northern Front Range, and FRCC are now in the second year of a one-of-a-kind apprenticeship partnership where medical assistant students are invited to step out of the classroom and learn skills in the real live clinical environment—complete with paid wages, paid tuition and earned college credit.

All of FRCC’s current health care and nursing programs will be housed in the HCCC. The building will also include space for new programming to meet the changing healthcare needs of the community. The HCCC will house a variety of state-of-the-art learning spaces including classrooms, labs, small group learning spaces and collaborative space to support the programs and provide students with the required high-end hands-on training by dramatically improving inadequate, undersized clinical labs.

Projected FRCC Health Carer Careers Center Photo: Front Range Community College

The UCHealth donation will help fund the creation of a nursing skills lab with 12 beds for simulated “patients.” The lab will be set up to model real-world health care rooms. For the highest degree of realism, the lab is equipped with simulated oxygen, suction and IV equipment. Working in this kind of simulated environment helps students get comfortable working on training equipment prior to being responsible for the safety of live patients in a clinical facility. The new “UCHealth Nursing Lab” will also include classroom space for 24 students.

The new Health Careers Center will fill a critical need for the community by providing highly qualified nurses and health care professionals for the growing population in northern Colorado and will be the main training center for more than 900 students studying health-related fields at Front Range Community College.