Futuro Health Vaccination Clinic Leads to Allied Health Graduates

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May 20, 2021, 09:00 ET

SACRAMENTO, Calif., May 20, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- For licensed vocational nursing student Majida Elmellah, it doesn't get much better than this. In need of clinical hours to graduate this spring, the Unitek College student also helped save lives while working with Futuro Health at the Moscone COVID-19 vaccination center.

"It was an amazing experience," Elmellah said. "It was very well organized, well managed, and involved great teamwork. Most of all, from what I could see, the patients were very pleased."

This graduation season, students like Elmellah faced a delay in earning a degree because of the pandemic disrupting access to clinical hours needed for graduation. For hundreds of students in Northern California, however, volunteering with Futuro Health gave the opportunity to earn experience that has made a spring 2021 graduation possible.

"Not only were we able to contribute to widespread vaccination efforts, but the students who joined us from College of San Mateo, Unitek College, and Quest Nursing gained the clinical, hands-on experience needed to fulfill their graduation and licensing requirements," said Debbie Yaddow, Futuro Health's Senior Director of Pathway Development. "Best of all, these students accrued over 7,500 clinical hours at no-cost."

The pandemic formed a catch-22 for students: there is a national shortage of allied healthcare workers, but students have not been able to graduate and enter the workforce because of the pandemic's impact on access to clinical hours.

"This unique, collaborative endeavor shows how we can provide patients with high-quality care while helping to move students toward fulfilling, in-demand careers," said Tom Hanenburg, Senior Vice President of Kaiser Permanente Hospital System Operations.

The campaign consortium, initiated by Kaiser Permanente, included Adventist Health, the California Medical Association, Dignity Health, and Futuro Health. Over the course of eight weeks, Futuro Health staffed Pod L, the accessibility pod, with 387 workers who covered 4,350 shifts and volunteered 25,500 hours.

About
Futuro Health improves the health and wealth of communities by growing the largest network of credentialed allied health workers in the nation starting in California. We believe investing in education and skills training and retraining results in better-paying jobs for workers, better service for patients and better workers for employers to hire. Kaiser Permanente and Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) partnered to establish Futuro Health in January 2020 with a $130 million commitment.

Contact:
Cheryl Broom
[email protected]

SOURCE Futuro Health