CHI Health offers free training to fill workforce shortages
CHI Health St. Elizabeth in Lincoln, Neb., is creating its own solution to the health care field’s staffing problem.
The organization’s CNA Advance Program offers free training, testing and employment to individuals in the Lincoln and Omaha area who want to become certified nursing assistants (CNAs). The students can more quickly climb the health care career ladder, while CHI Health fills gaps in its workforce.
Alicia Wenz recently graduated from the three-week program and is now employed in the progressive care unit at CHI Health St. Elizabeth.
“I just love being able to be a part of a care team that helps people get better,” Wenz said.
She is one of more than 40 students to complete the program since it launched in 2024. Once students pass a final exam, they are guaranteed employment at a CHI Health hospital of their choice. They also receive free CPR and basic life support training and are eligible to get training in skills such as phlebotomy or recording EKGs.
“CNAs are extremely important to helping with our patient care,” said Jenny Stachura, CHI Health chief nursing officer for the Iowa/Nebraska market. “CNAs will help take vital signs, they’ll do blood pressure, heart rate, those kinds of things. They really help assist the nursing team with anything that is needed.”
Program instructor Heidi Enderson works with students in the classroom and in a simulated patient room for hands-on practice. “The students can have all the practice they need if they want to go over a skill. We’ll either watch the video or do it again,” Enderson said. “I feel it’s very important for the hands-on part to kind of solidify and make sense of all these skills.”