a partnership of Mercy Medical Center - North Iowa and North Iowa Area Community College
The Regional Health Education Center (RHEC) is a partnership between Mercy Medical Center - North Iowa (Mercy) and North Iowa Area Community College (College). RHEC provides comprehensive and essential programs for a wide range of people who work in health care occupations, as well as the general public.
The College and Mercy offered 84,000 combined student hours prior to the partnership. The partnership offered 295,000 student hours during FY 2000 without increasing human resources over the past 14 years. RHEC has successfully capitalized on each organization’s networks and alliances for delivery of services; staff for adjunct faculty positions; state-of-the-art equipment for instructional purposes; and name recognition for promotion of programs, services, and activities.
Programs can be categorized in the following areas: Continuing Education programs offer health care professionals, such as physicians, nurses, dietitians, etc., opportunities to gain knowledge and skills, while achieving relicensure requirements; Staff Development programs offer Mercy employees, long-term care personnel, home health care agencies, and business and industry employees opportunities to do in-house training to meet the assessed needs of staff; Short-term Career Training programs provide certification for individuals to meet initial employment requirements. Courses include: Nurse Aide/Medication Aide, Nursing Assistant, Residential Attendant, First Responder, Emergency Medical Technician-Ambulance, Emergency Medical Technician-Intermediate, Paramedic, and Limited Practice Radiographer; Health Career Exploration curriculum provides students in grades 10-12 a means to obtain information about various health careers. The goal is to recruit students for health career education programs or entry-level job openings; External Learners access a variety of clinical and non-clinical learning experiences at Mercy through affiliation agreements or internships. RHEC coordinates and facilitates external education contracts with various colleges and assists individual students to design self-directed study options; Health Promotion programs offer target populations an opportunity to learn about, live with, improve, or prevent various health conditions or achieve a healthy lifestyle. Wellness classes encourage participants to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
In addition to offering programs, RHEC provides leadership for collaboration on new initiatives to various local and state groups. RHEC is a liaison between community colleges, state universities, private colleges, and health care providers to discuss statewide training related to manpower shortage; provides coaching and mentoring to others forming partnerships; assists health care institutions to utilize the education process to impact delivery of quality patient care in a cost effective manner; provides opportunities for various colleges to utilize clinical facilities for internship; and provides staff expertise for "Healthy Iowa 2010."
The Regional Health Education Center is a replicable model that has capitalized on each partner’s strengths, while integrating available resources to deliver affordable and accessible health education. Strategic alliances continue to provide opportunities for new and innovative initiatives. Local resources and partnering strengths can be maximized through alliances that also contribute resources for positive outcomes.
The Bellwether Award's website is here.