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ETA News Release: [03/25/2004]
Contact Name: Lorette
Post
Phone Number: (202) 693-3984
U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao Announces $5.4
Million in New Health Care Training Grants
Florida and Texas Awards to Address Nurse
Shortages, Part of National Effort
FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla.—U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao
today awarded two new grants totaling $5.4 million to fund nurse-training
programs in Florida and Texas. The grants are the latest in the Bush
Administration’s High Growth Job Training Initiative to
address critical worker shortages in various growth sectors of the economy,
including the health care industry. Secretary Chao kicked off the new national
Health Care Initiative in Baltimore on March 12.
“Today we are announcing two more grants in a $24.4 million
initiative to help workers train for jobs in the high growth health care sector
of our economy,” said Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao. “The first
$4 million grant will fund nurse- training programs in Florida and Texas.
Florida International University will receive the second grant worth $1.4
million as part of the President’s High Growth Job Training
Initiative. The health care field is desperately seeking qualified
workers, and these grants will help provide the skills training needed to pair
workers with new good-paying health care jobs.”
Secretary Chao was joined for the announcement by Dr. Larry Calderon,
president of Broward Community College, Dr. Ronald Berkman, dean of health and
urban affairs at Florida International University, Stephen L. Royal, president
of Hospital Corporation of America’s East Florida Division and a nursing
student from Broward Community College.
With the $4 million grant, the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) and
its partners will implement two approaches to address shortages in critical
nursing disciplines through the Specialty Nurse Training Program. A
distance-learning model will provide critical care core instruction to 100
Florida students during the grant’s first year. In the second year, those
students will specialize in either critical or emergency department care, while
a second 100 will be enrolled in the core program. In Austin, Texas, 80
candidates will qualify, through a hands-on, accelerated Nursing
Apprenticeship/Fellowship, similar to a medical residency, to work in specialty
areas such as intensive care units, emergency departments and surgical
services.
The second grant will fund Florida International University School of
Nursing’s New Americans in Nursing Program. The program will use distance
interactive television to retrain 100 unemployed and underemployed
foreign-educated physicians—70 in Miami and 30 in Tallahassee—to
become registered nurses in this country.
“The health care industry is predicted to grow at a rate of 28
percent between 2002 and 2012, adding 3.5 million new jobs,” said
Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment and Training Emily Stover DeRocco.
“The programs supported by these grants will serve as models for the
public workforce system to equip workers with skills needed to hold good jobs
at good pay and continue providing Americans with quality health
care.”
The High Growth Job Training Initiative is a strategic
effort to better prepare workers to take advantage of new job opportunities in
high growth sectors of the American economy. Through executive forums with
leaders of expanding industries, critical workforce gaps and issues are
identified. Solutions, like today’s grants, are then created in
cooperation with employers, educational institutions and the public workforce
system. Health care is the first in a series of industry rollouts planned under
the High Growth Job Training Initiative.
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