On March 16, UNITE-LA hosted a panel of health care employers from diverse sub-sectors, including Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, UCLA Health, AltaMed, South Central Family Health Center, Belmont Village, LAUSD and Medica Talent Group, at the bi-monthly Health Sector Collaborative (HSC) meeting. Employers shared the current landscape around their workforce needs and partnerships with education institutions and community-based organizations around training and pipeline programs. HSC is a cross-sector collaborative of health care employers, K-16 education and workforce institutions and community-based organizations working on health care workforce solutions in the L.A. region.

Given the evolving ways the pandemic is impacting the health care industry and its workforce needs, this conversation was well-received by employers and educators as one that helped them better understand partnership opportunities to prepare a skilled, diverse workforce to meet current and future needs. The conversation highlighted the importance of:

• Exposing youth and dislocated workers to all available career options in the health care industry, including non-clinical careers such as billing, administration, food services, activities coordination, etc. These occupations are also essential to the industry and can serve as entry-level opportunities that can lead to internal advancement.
• Providing continuous support to students from diverse communities in the health care talent pipeline — both with developing employment and career skills (like resume building and interviewing skills) and navigating social and emotional challenges in their lives (such as family members being diagnosed with COVID-19, family members’ deaths and other hardships during this time).
• Cross-sector partnerships and collaborations. For example, LAUSD reinforced the critical role of cross-sector collaboration when stating that their recruitment events have been most successful thanks to partnership with the HSC and its members.

Discussions at this meeting will inform ongoing efforts and partnerships among Health Sector Collaborative members.