The South Side is ready for an innovative health careers pipeline
Commentaries at the San Antonio Report provide space for our community to share perspectives and offer solutions to pressing local issues. The views expressed in this commentary belong to the author alone.
It is an exciting time for today’s students growing up in a technology era with worldwide cyber reach. Health care is filled with technological advances disrupting legacy processes with innovative approaches to prevention, diagnoses and treatment fueled by AI.
This is an excellent opportunity facing Southside youth.
Yet, when you ask Southside students if they want to be doctors, most will consider it a bridge too far to cross. Our challenge is to help them see that, with the right preparation and new pathway opportunities, it is possible to become health care professionals serving their home communities. The community needs them.
In a recent report, the Texas Healthcare Workforce Task Force offers a list of 18 recommendations for addressing the shortage of skilled health care workers in the state, more than half of which are related to expanding and modernizing the education and training pipeline that is needed to develop a skilled workforce. According to U.S. Department of Labor data, health care is the largest employment sector in Texas, making up 13% of the total workforce. Yet, 224 of 254 Texas counties are currently designated as “health professional shortage areas,” affecting more than six million residents.
As one of the fastest growing cities in Texas, San Antonio has a critical role to play in helping to fill in those gaps to meet the health care workforce needs. For San Antonio, it also means addressing longstanding disparities in quality and availability of health care options in south Bexar County compared to our northern neighbors.
A highly skilled and well-trained health care workforce is vital for the rapidly evolving health care technology landscape — the more homegrown, the better. In fact, developing the workforce in a majority-minority city contributes much-needed diversity to the industry and can help improve patient outcomes by increasing the prevalence of culturally informed care.
We believe this requires not only an emphasis on education and training but sustained investment and innovation. It also requires a collaborative, comprehensive approach across the K-12, community college and four-year university pipeline to ensure that the range of health care skills and professions are fully addressed. We are now embarking on a steady path to meet this need.
For example, Harlandale Independent School District is strengthening the health care workforce pipeline through strategic partnerships with higher education institutions to develop a nursing pathway, allowing students to progress seamlessly from high school through BSN/RN programs. Building upon its existing health science programs, Harlandale ISD is enhancing current offerings and creating early college opportunities that will prepare students for nursing careers.
This is a strategy that other South Bexar school districts are also exploring, including the possibility of jointly creating a health careers magnet high school. This partnership approach would provide a broad base of students with a clear path to high-demand health care careers that serve their community.
The Alamo Colleges District is building a robust health care education pipeline to address regional health disparities. For example, Palo Alto College is advancing an ecosystem that prepares students for roles in health care and directly responds to our community’s unique needs. Its nursing pipeline offers students pathways toward a Bachelor of Science in nursing, enhancing the capacity for culturally competent care. Its dental hygiene program and clinic provide hands-on training while addressing the Southside’s historically limited access to health services.
The University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) School of Osteopathic Medicine has also launched a strategic initiative to address the critical shortage of health care professionals in South Bexar County. By establishing a campus in this underserved region, UIW aims to train future physicians who are prepared to meet the unique health care needs of the community. This is supported by a unique program offering direct admit options for highly qualified first-year students that can lead to advanced degrees in pharmacy, physical therapy, optometry or osteopathic medicine through the UIW health professions schools.
Recently, Texas A&M University-San Antonio commissioned a workforce and degree production analysis of Bexar County and the surrounding 75-mile region. The study confirmed that growth in our region is outpacing the rest of the nation, pointing to a severe shortage in degrees for health-related professions. An 8% increase in nursing jobs is projected from 2023 to 2028. The current degree production will not meet this increasing demand. Simultaneously, 23.8% of nursing positions are occupied by individuals who are 55 years and older and will soon begin leaving the workforce.
Next year, TAMU-SA will be making an exceptional line-item request to the 89th Texas Legislature to offer bachelor’s degree programs in nursing and health care administration. If approved, these programs will help address our community’s health career pipeline needs, especially with the majority of the university’s graduates staying in Bexar County post-graduation.
There is no question that people prefer providers who know their community, who understand the culture and language and who have the empathy to easily relate with each patient. Consequently, we must offer differing pathways to a successful career in health care for the broadest population of students possible.
This can start with an increase in school visits by role models with whom young elementary students can relate. In later years more summer internships in clinics and hospitals, opportunities for work-study and tuition scholarships are all needed to help prepare for health professional careers.
A longer path from health aide to nurse or from army medic to pharmacist is possible. Or the pathway could be from military service to a bachelor’s degree and then to medical school. The possible paths are many and varied but they are not all obvious to students, which means we have work to do to make the way clear.
As leaders in the education community, we feel this responsibility keenly. In South Bexar County, the stakes are especially high. Achieving the desired educational outcomes for our students often means entry to the professional class and is the key to socio-economic mobility and disrupting intergenerational poverty.
As educators, we look forward to partnering with the new Center for Health Equity in South Texas (CHEST) as we work collaboratively to fill the health careers pipeline that produces critically needed, technically innovative health care professionals.
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