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Employer Solutions
Academic Solutions
Is Your Digital Learning Environment up to the Task?
Remote learning offers a flexible, efficient solution for your organization’s training needs. While building a remote learning environment may seem daunting, it becomes manageable with the right digital learning environment (DLE) – a unified set of tools and platforms designed to facilitate online learning. DLE encompasses the tools, technology and platforms needed to deliver and facilitate online education.
This environment shapes how learners interact with their coursework and retain knowledge. When your team members undergo a reskilling or upskilling program, they gain more than just new skills, they experience a holistic approach to career development. Here’s a closer look at the essential components of a robust digital learning environment.
Workforce Solutions
MedCerts Program Solutions
Partnering to Address Dental Assistant Demand
It’s the question every dental practice is wondering: where are all the dental assistants?
According to Jennifer Zabel, a senior allied health program director with MedCerts, the biggest challenge affecting the dental assistant profession is the labor shortage. Scores of assistants left dentistry during COVID closures, which only compounded existing labor shortages caused by burnout, turnover, retirements, and a host of other life issues that cause people to leave healthcare jobs.
Dental assistants are essential and highly visible members of the dental practice. They provide a variety of services: greeting and scheduling patients, taking x-rays, keeping records, and assisting dentists and dental hygienists throughout the appointment. In addition, they pour dental models, help to fabricate temporary crowns, assist with the application of sealant, fluoride and topical anesthetics, and provide aftercare instructions. Dental practices frankly cannot do without them.
Of the one million people who work in dentists’ offices, more than a third are dental assistants. Today, the nation has some 370,000 assistants and, each year, dental offices need about 64,000 new and replacement dental assistants. Over the next 10 years, growth is projected to be about 10%.
The need for dental assistants, in other words, is not going away. If something is to be done about the labor shortage, it must be now.
Apprenticeships
Building the Future Allied Health Workforce with Apprenticeships
As people seek better ways to enter or move around within the labor market, there’s no question that an increasingly mainstream approach has been apprenticeships. According to the Department of Labor, nearly 610,000 Americans are currently working as apprentices, a 106% increase since 2013. Given the high cost of postsecondary education, the need to hire quickly, and the relaxing of degree requirements, apprenticeships have become an appealing and effective alternative to college.
Healthcare Apprenticeships Offer Northwest Illinois a Solution to Shortages
In the world of healthcare, apprenticeships are relatively new and rare. But Karen Kryder, the innovative learning team leader for FHN—a non-profit regional healthcare system with 17 locations across five counties in Northwest Illinois—is working to change that.
Henry Ford Health Uses the Apprenticeship Model to Attract and Develop Talent
Takeaways:
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Factors like the cost of education, low replacement rates, compensation, retirements and an aging population have made hiring healthcare workers extremely difficult.
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According to Catherine Susko, director of talent solutions for Henry Ford Health, the best way to resolve labor shortage challenges is to “create opportunities for development and advancement.”
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The 107-year-old healthcare provider must find new ways to staff up if it wants to continue to provide much-needed services to the surrounding community.
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The apprenticeship model is ideal for HFH because it “helps people who would not otherwise know about opportunities in healthcare to learn and pursue these jobs.”
