Meeting Demand: Creating a New Pipeline of Health Care Workers

00;00;00;28 - 00;00;35;23
Tom Haederle
The health care field needs more workers right away. But even more so to meet future demand. Many teenagers need and want direction. A chance to develop new skills and just maybe discover an exciting new path in life. For Atlanta based Grady Health System, this is a match made in heaven. Welcome to Advancing Health, a podcast from the American Hospital Association.

00;00;35;26 - 00;01;00;15
Tom Haederle
I'm Tom Haederle with AHA Communications. A little more than a year ago, Grady Health System rolled out a new teen experience and leadership program providing hands on internships for local teens while building its health care workforce pipeline for the future. Those teens who apply and are accepted shadow with Grady health professionals across nearly all aspects of hospital operations ... from clinical all to areas like finance and billing.

00;01;00;21 - 00;01;10;23
Tom Haederle
It's a taste of the real world of health care for young people. And in this podcast, one of its creators describes why it's been what she calls an astounding success.

00;01;10;25 - 00;01;34;05
Elisa Arespacochaga
I’m Elisa Arespacochaga, vice president of Clinical Affairs and Workforce and really excited to be joined today by Yolanda Wimberly, senior vice president and chief health equity officer at Grady Health System. And Dr. Felicia Mobley, director of Health Equity. Today, we're exploring Grady's teen experience and leadership program, which provides hands on internships for local teens while also building Grady's health care workforce pipeline.

00;01;34;07 - 00;01;40;03
Elisa Arespacochaga
So to get us started, Dr. Wimberly, let me start with you. Tell me a little bit about yourself and about Grady.

00;01;40;05 - 00;02;07;16
Yolanda Wimberly
Yes, thank you. Yes, I am actually a pediatrician and an adolescent medicine specialist, so I specialize in teenagers and in practice clinical medicine for the past 25 years in the city of Atlanta. And I pretty much have a strong passion for just ushering in the new generation and ensuring that we are exposing them to the things and the opportunities that will allow them to make a sound decision for their future.

00;02;07;18 - 00;02;43;23
Yolanda Wimberly
And so that's a little bit about me in my past clinical role. In this role at Grady Health Systems, I joined as the Chief Health Equity Inaugural Officer in October of 2021. And so I've been in this position now for the past 18 months, and it really has been a great position for me marrying that clinical medicine for the past 25 years now, being able to identify areas of health inequities, to be able to ensure that we are having action-based solutions to those areas that need attention.

00;02;43;25 - 00;03;02;11
Yolanda Wimberly
And so that's just a little bit about me and a little bit about my position. Like I said, it's been here for 18 months. Grady's located in Atlanta, Georgia. We are the fifth largest public hospital in the country, and we have the privilege of serving primarily the underserved and uninsured population.

00;03;02;13 - 00;03;07;13
Elisa Arespacochaga
Thank you so much. Dr. Mobley. Tell us a little bit about you and your role.

00;03;07;16 - 00;03;09;03
Felicia Mobley
Yes, hi My name is

00;03;09;03 - 00;03;09;21
Felicia Mobley
Felicia

00;03;09;21 - 00;03;43;23
Felicia Mobley
Mobley, and I am the director of Health Equity. I am a native Atlantian and joined the Grady Health System team and working with Dr. Wimberly a few weeks ago. My background relates to public health and program development, leadership development and strategic planning. So this gives me an opportunity from a programmatic perspective to work alongside Dr. Wimberly as we improve health equity in our communities.

00;03;43;25 - 00;04;04;25
Felicia Mobley
I have a vested interest in the workforce because I, too was an individual who wanted to have a career path in health care and was unsure. So I know how important these types of experiences are in shaping the trajectory of young people and glad to be a part of it.

00;04;04;28 - 00;04;24;00
Elisa Arespacochaga
Oh, absolutely. And I really, I really resonate with that. The idea that most people think, you know, there are doctors and nurses that work in hospitals and that's it. And there's actually a whole host of people. So, Dr. Wimberly, can you tell me a little bit about how you came up with the idea to have this teen shadowing program?

00;04;24;00 - 00;04;32;00
Elisa Arespacochaga
Clearly, you have a deep love of working with teens and have been doing it for quite a while. But how did you come up with this plan?

00;04;32;02 - 00;04;59;12
Yolanda Wimberly
You know, really, I'll have to I have to really thank my patients for that. Over the past couple of decades of practicing medicine, I've had lots of youth who will talk to me about becoming a position or something in the health care workforce primarily, you know, physicians and nurses or what most people kind of know. So they talk about your career path and talk about what those experiences are.

00;04;59;18 - 00;05;22;26
Yolanda Wimberly
Prior to my role at Grady, I was at Morehouse Medicine for 22, 23 years, and I worked a lot with their pre-med programming and a lot of the community programs that they had at Morehouse Medicine. So been around it my entire career. When we came to Grady, I was very interested in this role. The first thing was, you know, what are some of the inequities that we see?

00;05;22;27 - 00;05;51;01
Yolanda Wimberly
And to me, one of the glaring ones were just workforce development. And this is workforce development that's just beyond physician and nurses. But even for me as a physician, I've learned a lot within the first six months about all of the different roles within the healthcare system. The surgical tech, I.T., you know, finance. EBS. These things that you just don't necessarily think about when you think about health care and when you think about careers in health care.

00;05;51;08 - 00;06;23;12
Yolanda Wimberly
And so I started to think, you know, if I, as a physician was it really cognizant of a lot of these things that make a hospital work? Because we often times have a lot of just vision in the area that we are in. But I bet a lot of people don't really know that or don't understand that. And so with that, what ended up happening was I started to think, wouldn't it be neat if we could bring students in to experience this, to experience all the different aspects that a health care career can provide.

00;06;23;18 - 00;06;57;03
Yolanda Wimberly
And so that's really married, that kind of that inquisitiveness of the teenagers that I've been lucky to care for for the past couple of decades and marry that with my new experience that I had here at Grady Hospital. And it all just kind of came together. And so it really became a project where we wanted to really expose teenagers to the health care field in all of the vastly different types of careers that they can have, which includes a physician and a nurse, which are the more common ones.

00;06;57;08 - 00;07;16;19
Yolanda Wimberly
But it also gave them non-clinical exposure as well. So it included a larger catchment of of people that could participate in the program. So that's really kind of how it all kind of came together to be able to have this program and get started here in Grady.

00;07;16;22 - 00;07;35;02
Elisa Arespacochaga
That's wonderful. So I love the fact that you've structured it so that they can both experience clinical roles and understand what those clinical roles are, but understand that there are other roles within health care that are essential to that support. So can you talk a little bit about the structure of your program and how it's set up to run?

00;07;35;05 - 00;08;00;07
Yolanda Wimberly
So this is really the first. Last year we had a pilot session and this is really the first full year that we've had with this expansion. And so essentially around March, what we do is we'll send out something typically via social media or via email, letting people know that the opportunity exists for people to apply for for the Teen Experience and Leadership program.

00;08;00;09 - 00;08;25;19
Yolanda Wimberly
With that, they do complete some requirements that they have. We have about 42 different units within the hospital that they can rotate through. These units are mostly clinical, but we probably have about 13 or 14 of them this year that were non-clinical units, which we're really proud of. So that would be finance, human resources and those that legal compliance.

00;08;25;19 - 00;08;45;29
Yolanda Wimberly
And so we've got a lot of interest in those areas. They have 42 assignments that they can choose from. And the students have different shifts that they can attend. And so it's open seven days a week for them to be able to have the the shadowing experiences. We have one shift from 8 to 12, one from 4 to 5 and one from 5 to 9.

00;08;46;06 - 00;09;06;17
Yolanda Wimberly
The reason that we structured it that way was we wanted to allow an opportunity for all people, no matter what their schedules are, to be able to have the experience. Oftentimes what I find is some of my students who play sports or have jobs may not have the opportunities in the daytime to be able to participate in the traditional 8 to 5.

00;09;06;24 - 00;09;23;27
Yolanda Wimberly
And that was one of the reasons why we had that 5 to 9 shift there. And those are available seven days a week because the hospitals open seven days a week. And so we wanted to structure it to be very flexible. People can do as much as they like to do or as few shifts that they'd like to do.

00;09;23;27 - 00;09;45;07
Yolanda Wimberly
We have some people who do one four hour shift every two weeks, so we have some people who do eight hour shifts every day. And so we wanted the students to be able to structure their experience, however they wanted to do that. They do have a wide variety of combinations, so they may do a non-clinical in the morning and a clinical in the afternoon.

00;09;45;13 - 00;10;08;18
Yolanda Wimberly
We have one student who's actually done 27 different units, and then we have a couple of students who just do the same thing every day. So, you know, we really do enjoy allowing the teens to be able to select what it is that they're interested in and what it is they want to foster and grow. And so we're very proud of that.

00;10;08;20 - 00;10;23;25
Yolanda Wimberly
I will tell you at Grady, I wasn't necessarily sure if we were going to be able to pull off seven days a week with all these different shifts. And so when I first came, I said, Well, you know, we don't have to do anything on the weekends. And then they were like, We're open on the weekends, 24/7.

00;10;23;25 - 00;10;46;26
Yolanda Wimberly
We're always here. So I said, Let's go for it. And so, you know, the excitement that the employees have for this program that really fuels Dr. Mobley and I just to continue with it, because if they don't have a student signed up for the year for their particular assignment is funny, they will come and call us and say, you got to send us some students.

00;10;46;28 - 00;11;02;02
Yolanda Wimberly
And so we have to always, constantly be sure that we are feeding these 42 particular assignments. The students, because the staff are so ecstatic to be able to have people to teach and to expose the medicine.

00;11;02;04 - 00;11;15;18
Elisa Arespacochaga
So tell me a little bit about some of the both the challenges you face getting this program off the ground, but then some of the things that some of the successes that have really helped you keep going and be excited about continuing this work.

00;11;15;21 - 00;11;43;13
Yolanda Wimberly
The success of the program has really been quite astounding. We have been able to reach out to the community, to a lot of people who really have not had any personal affiliation with Grady at all. About 95% of the students who have rotated through the program have never stepped foot on the Grady campus before, with probably about another 60% of them never even being in downtown Atlanta.

00;11;43;15 - 00;12;09;21
Yolanda Wimberly
So that has been really, really eye opening for us. And it's also been eye opening for the institution in a sense that it has allowed us to really open up to the community and have people come into the hospital that really is the community's hospital to be able to have this experience. So that's that's one success of the program, which is that exposure, getting more people used to our brand.

00;12;09;23 - 00;12;35;29
Yolanda Wimberly
In addition and just, you know, the experience that the teenagers have been able to have out here, it has been amazing. You have just your normal things that you think about as far as the teens with them being able to rotate during the different clinical and non-clinical rotations. But in addition to that, they've been able to meet a large amount of people from different areas within the hospital system.

00;12;36;02 - 00;12;57;22
Yolanda Wimberly
The stories that the students tell about how people are just taking them under their wings and giving them life advice, advice about school, advice about career, and really become that village that is so much needed for a lot of the teenagers so that we can really uplift them and make sure that they have positive experiences while they're here.

00;12;57;22 - 00;13;29;04
Yolanda Wimberly
And so that's really been another other big thing that we've seen. A third success that I would say that we really hadn't anticipated was we have a wide variety of teenagers who are participating in this program. And so about probably about 82% of the participants are from public school, from the public school system. We have about a 60/40 with 60% female gender split.

00;13;29;10 - 00;13;59;12
Yolanda Wimberly
We have 116 unique schools, high schools that are sending their students to this program in the metro Atlanta area. So we have people from all walks of life, all economic statuses, all different types of school. We have private public charter, home-schooling, you know, dual degree programs, who are all converging together at Grady. And when they do these rotations, a lot of times the students are with other people.

00;13;59;18 - 00;14;27;20
Yolanda Wimberly
So we may be two or three of them all that particular experience together. So in addition to learn about medicine and also getting that exposure, in addition to that, they are meeting other people that may be like them or may not be like them. And so that has really been something that we've heard a lot of with friendships that are blossoming with people who are starting to learn about others and be able to have that relationship building as well.

00;14;27;22 - 00;14;44;19
Yolanda Wimberly
So I would say that those for me are the top three things that really come out. Two were kind of expected, but that last one was something that we didn't necessarily expect to happen, but we think is a very positive aspect. Dr. Mobley, I’ll hand it over to you to have any additions.

00;14;44;22 - 00;14;46;11
Felicia Mobley
Yes, I would like to add to that.

00;14;46;11 - 00;15;11;02
Felicia Mobley
One of the things that has been a great success is to be able to allow students to humanize those who have less than. Many of our students have never been in downtown Atlanta or have not been in our urban setting. So often they would say they're real people. And we know this because we interact with them on a daily basis.

00;15;11;02 - 00;15;52;09
Felicia Mobley
But this was an opportunity for them to interact with patients, with other health care workers, in a setting that they would normally not have access to. One of the other successes is I've had several students say, Wow, I've got a program that I've paid for and have not had this type of real life hands-on experience. And so to know that we're able to offer something for students and eliminate a barrier such as costs, to give them a true perspective and opportunity to change their trajectory as it relates to a career has been absolutely rewarding.

00;15;52;11 - 00;16;13;01
Elisa Arespacochaga
Wonderful. That's just the ability to make those kinds of connections is just unparalleled. So as you're looking at this and I know your graduation is coming up shortly for the first cohort, how are you thinking about moving this forward and you know, what's what's coming next? And can I sign up?

00;16;13;03 - 00;16;37;25
Yolanda Wimberly
Yes, that's a that's a great question, because I'll tell you, the teenagers have lots of ideas, but Dr. Mobley and I, we've thought about, you know, what we will do next year and how we will move forward from this. One of the challenges that we've had with the program is just the growth, right? We can only accept

00;16;37;25 - 00;17;13;18
Yolanda Wimberly
so many people. And to be honest with you, we really didn't do a huge marketing campaign this year and we received 433 teens who actually applied and turned away about hundreds more. So who knows if we didn't turn people away, how many we would have been able to applications we would have been able to accept. With about 236 active teenagers in the program. Of those 236, 197 to date having at least served 4 hours here at Grady.

00;17;13;20 - 00;17;37;16
Yolanda Wimberly
So that is a pretty huge amount of students that are here with an average of about 70 of them rotating through each and every day here, every day since June 1st through July 27. So one of our challenges and what we're looking forward to is, you know, do we expand? Do we stay the same? What does that next step look like?

00;17;37;18 - 00;17;59;07
Yolanda Wimberly
You want to ensure that you're still able to get the variety of experiences that they want to have, but you also want to ensure that you're able to offer it to as many people in the community as possible. Dr. Mobley and I are thinking about other types of things that we could do in addition that would go to workforce development.

00;17;59;07 - 00;18;20;13
Yolanda Wimberly
So do we go into individual schools and have seminars there? Do we kind of really diversify the portfolio of what the workforce program looks like? It doesn't necessarily always have to just be them coming here, but can we as a Grady, as a hospital, go out to the community as well? So that's something that we're looking to as well.

00;18;20;18 - 00;18;39;27
Yolanda Wimberly
And of course, as you know, we get lots of calls from middle school and elementary school parents who are saying now, well, what are you guys going to do for that age? You know, that's the age you should be looking at. You know, I can always see how their children are by what age they want us to look at.

00;18;40;00 - 00;19;03;00
Yolanda Wimberly
And what we tell them is that we know is important at the elementary and middle school levels as well, to engage students, because often times I think that really that sixth grade is when people start to say, this is what I want to do and this is what I don't want to do. The most important thing for me is kids can identify what they don't want to do, usually about fifth of sixth grade.

00;19;03;02 - 00;19;24;19
Yolanda Wimberly
And so it's important for us to have that exposure prior to that as well. So our biggest thing that we're looking at is what will this program look like next year? We definitely know we'll be here next year. But what it look like next year as far as how it is structured and how it is administered.

00;19;24;21 - 00;19;46;05
Yolanda Wimberly
In addition to that, we've been getting lots of requests for: can I just continue to do this during school? Can we come back over the holiday break at school and do it? And so we have been really thinking about is there an opportunity for us to instead of only offered it in the summer and maybe do a fall break, maybe do a holiday break, maybe doing your winter break.

00;19;46;10 - 00;19;59;10
Yolanda Wimberly
And so with students have great schools, is there an opportunity? So we're exploring just a lot of a lot of those options to see. And I'll hand it over to you that Dr. Mobley for any additional comment.

00;19;59;11 - 00;20;06;16
Felicia Mobley
Yeah, the only thing I would add is that what this program has allowed students to see is areas that they haven't thought about.

00;20;06;16 - 00;20;41;02
Felicia Mobley
And so we've had several students who weren't necessarily interested in the clinical side of medicine, but wanted to learn more about the administrative side of medicine. So we were very fortunate to offer rotations in human resources, in corporate compliance and legal affairs. Some have even asked in hospital administration. So this really just gives students an opportunity to open up the door, so to speak, to the hospital and realize that it takes a lot to make a organization like Grady run and run well.

00;20;41;02 - 00;20;54;17
Felicia Mobley
And so now that they've had an opportunity to peek inside, they're really interested in looking at all of the different aspects that are just not clinical and non-clinical for a career in the health field.

00;20;54;19 - 00;21;17;17
Elisa Arespacochaga
That’s wonderful. And maybe you can deploy some of those teenagers to the middle schools to talk about their experience as part of this process. Let me wrap up our conversation today with a question for both of you. So as others are listening to this, what advice would you share with them if they're looking to start a program in their own communities?

00;21;17;19 - 00;21;21;11
Elisa Arespacochaga
How to get started? What what would you tell them to go about doing?

00;21;21;13 - 00;21;50;14
Yolanda Wimberly
Yes, I think that the most important piece is to have a vision that is going to be related to some type of mission with the institution that it is, and this will be the hospital. So one of the first things that I had to do was go to talk to our CEO about, you know, what are the goals and the strategies of the hospital for the workforce development? What are some of the things that we're already doing?

00;21;50;14 - 00;22;19;09
Yolanda Wimberly
So doing an inventory of what your hospital system is already doing and then seeing if this type of program can work to fill a void. Because what we've also been able to do is we have nursing programs, we have a radiology school, we also have a EMS school. We have other opportuneities at Grady where we have trainees and learners and we work with them.

00;22;19;12 - 00;22;47;02
Yolanda Wimberly
And so I would say to make sure that you also can identify alignment within your hospital systems for the introduction of a program like this. That will a get you better buy in. It'll help you with collaboration and it'll also help to enhance the experiences, because I'll tell you all of our administrators from those other programs that we have at Grady, they are all sites for the students.

00;22;47;10 - 00;23;12;27
Yolanda Wimberly
They were some of the first ones to sign up because in their mind, they're looking at it as a continuum, right? So I'm going to have some of these students come through here so that they may be interested in applying after this program is over to some of the other programs that we have. And a lot of those programs start once someone graduates from high school, which is even better for the workforce development.

00;23;13;03 - 00;23;37;23
Yolanda Wimberly
So we're not talking about programs where they're going to attend in 4 to 5 years. These are programs that if you are a high school senior in this program because we have 13 to 19 year olds, then you can immediately come out of TELP to go into one of our other programs. And so I would say to be very strategic about bringing it in and also be very strategic about who you collaborate with.

00;23;37;24 - 00;23;56;09
Yolanda Wimberly
Now, Mr. John Haupert is our CEO. He was just head over heels for this. He said, let's do it. This is something that needs to be done. The other thing I would say is measuring. And so it's important for you to understand what type of impact you're going to be able to have. So Dr. Mobley and I have a lot of data.

00;23;56;12 - 00;24;20;02
Yolanda Wimberly
We have a lot of data on these students. And by data points I mean, we're going to follow them throughout to see are there things that we can do to ensure that they have a health care interest, if your interest remains, that we can be of assistance? The majority of them have already told us that they want to come back again next year, which is going to be interesting if we don't expand, right?

00;24;20;02 - 00;24;52;20
Yolanda Wimberly
So though so being able to I think of the hospital system for me show that yes, this is more than just a feel good program for the community to come into Grady. This is also serious because what we're going to do is show that when we bring these 236 students in or these 433 applicants that we have, we are building a database in the community so that when we have training programs, we have special workshops, we have anything that goes on.

00;24;52;23 - 00;25;10;12
Yolanda Wimberly
We already have a database of students that we can reach out to to be able to build. And so those are some things that I would tell people that just remember to be strategic. The feel good is great, but you also have to be strategic to show the impact to be able to have sustainability. Dr. Mobley, if you have anything to add?

00;25;10;14 - 00;25;38;29
Felicia Mobley
Yes, absolutely. In addition to having that strategy and having depth of that great foundation, you absolutely have to have an amazing connection with all staff in all levels of the organization. We have over 200 staff volunteers who come down when it's time for them to do their rotations or who will text me and say, can we get another student?

00;25;38;29 - 00;26;03;23
Felicia Mobley
So it really takes those grass roots boots on the ground individuals who are also willing to support the mission and willing to assist with the students. When we think about some of the rotations, our perioperative services, where they're going into the O.R., is that something that your organization is willing to support and you do have staff who's there to support them?

00;26;03;23 - 00;26;35;00
Felicia Mobley
Of course, we talk about our emergency department and our trauma program. Our students are in the trauma bay, and so their understanding is seeing real life patients who are experiencing a crisis who need our support. So in order for the experience to truly be one that's experiential and one that I like to say unique, you have to make sure is more than them just looking through a window or a glass, but that they are able to roll up their sleeves and be integrated and involved in the day to day.

00;26;35;00 - 00;26;39;11
Felicia Mobley
So they really understand about the positions and the different roles.

00;26;39;13 - 00;27;03;19
Elisa Arespacochaga
That is wonderful. I love that you really are getting them a true experience so that they can make those decisions as they think about what career do I want to engage in. They really understand what it is and what it means and how it works. Thank you so much, Dr. Wimberly, Dr. Mobley, for sharing your amazing program. And I'm going to put my application in for next year and I have to come down to Atlanta.

00;27;03;22 - 00;27;05;19
Yolanda Wimberly
Come on down.

00;27;06;21 - 00;27;07;22
Elisa Arespacochaga
All right. Thank you.