Health centers often face enormous challenges in attracting and keeping a skilled workforce, but Cahaba Medical Care in Alabama has found that extensive training programs have helped to bring in a wide array of employees. Many of them choose to stay.
“Recruiting is not hard with enough money,” said Dr. John Waits, Cahaba’s Chief Executive Officer. But long-term retention can be another story.
Cahaba trains just about everyone. The health center offers a medical residency program in both rural and urban locations, a 15-month program for nurse practitioners and a two-year program where new mental health professionals work with licensed social workers. Cahaba, which has two dozen locations, even boasts a training program for recent high school graduates who are coming on as medical assistants. And that is just for starters; the center plans to launch a pharmacy residency program as well.
As a Teaching Health Center, Cahaba offers a family medicine residency program. Most of the graduates end up working in underserved communities, and about a quarter stay for at least a few years after completing the program, Waits said.
Cahaba staff deliberately use a cohort structure in the training programs. For example, the nurse practitioner program will typically have four or five people in a given cohort. The health center staff has learned that employees trained in this fashion are much more likely to stay.
Waits, who formerly taught at the University of Alabama, said helping to shape the training programs at Cahaba, has allowed him to combine two of his passions. “I love teaching; I just didn’t want to do it for the rest of my life. I’m a country doctor.”