Officials with Missouri State University, Ozarks Technical Community College, Springfield Public Schools and CoxHealth announced on Tuesday an alliance they called “transformative” for training future health care industry workers.
Called the Alliance for Health Care Education, the group aims to help southwest Missouri students move through a common system as they pursue medical careers. The result would effectively merge programs from Cox College into OTC and MSU, and create a direct path from high school through college and into a profession desperate for employees.
“At some point all of us are going to need medical intervention, whether it’s just an annual physical or some type of surgery,” said Grenita Lathan, superintendent of Springfield Public Schools. “The alliance will help us to further the knowledge and understanding of what it means to be in a health care career … it will afford students the opportunity to develop a long-term career in health.”
The collaboration was announced at a morning press conference at the Cox College campus on Springfield’s North Side. It establishes a river current for potential applicants that starts as early as middle school. The group aims to divide pathways accordingly:
- SPS will expand its relationship with OTC, allowing students to earn both a high school diploma and an associate degree or appropriate credentials.
- OTC will expand its programs to fill positions that require an associate degree or certification. That includes taking on Cox College’s associate science in nursing program, as well as radiology and imaging.
- MSU will take on Cox College’s programs for a bachelor’s or master’s degree in nursing, as well as programs for occupational therapy and nutrition.
- Cox College will allow OTC and MSU to use its facilities, part of the Cox North Hospital campus along Jefferson and Robberson Avenues, near Division Street in the city’s near North Side.
This plan is dependent upon accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission, officials said. But if developed as envisioned, the alliance would become one of the largest producers of health science professionals in the Midwest.
Members hope other Springfield stakeholders get involved, including hospitals such as Mercy Hospital, colleges such as Drury University and Evangel University, and surrounding public school districts.
“We learned some best practices that were out there, but I think we look to elevate that to the next level,” said Max Buetow, president of CoxHealth. “That’s why we are saying that this is really an unprecedented collaboration, because no one has done it at this scale.”
Cox College campus will remain in use
One of the first steps will be the absorption of Cox College students and programs into OTC and MSU. Buetow said current students at Cox College will complete their programs, and that a recent almost $7 million expansion of its campus will become available to many more students. Cox College faculty and staff will remain with the school, Buetow said.
“We are actually in a position because of that renovation to strengthen the college, to enter into this type of agreement,” Buetow said. “This isn’t Cox College going away. This is Cox College being incorporated into a broader infrastructure that allows all this to come together, and maximize the strengths of all the entities combined.”
OTC Chancellor Hal Higdon and MSU President Clif Smart both said that the 70,000 square feet of space on the Cox Medical Center North campus can be put to immediate use for growing both schools’ programs. Higdon said OTC can use that space “right off the bat.”
“Missouri State doesn’t have the ability to double the size of our programs with the space that we have,” Smart said. “It’s the ability to expand and grow in Cox North that makes this have the tremendous growth potential that it does.”
Both colleges need the space, Higdon and Smart said. Higdon said while enrollment at OTC is up by about 3 percent, in health care programs the increase is 5 percent. Some OTC health programs that usually aren’t filled to capacity are filled completely with students. Smart reports an increase of almost 200 students in MSU’s college of health and human services, and almost 100 more students in the Missouri State nursing program.
Addressing a shortage
The increased attendance will help address an exodus of health care workers that escalated after the COVID-19 pandemic. In its most recent study of workforce data, the Missouri Hospitals Association reported both turnover and vacancy of medical occupations for 2022 were slightly improved over 2021, but remain higher than pre-pandemic levels.
The drop in employees is accompanied by a greater number of patients in need of services, as members of the Baby Boomer generation begin retirement.
Lathan said the Springfield school district is in the process of expanding its outreach about opportunities in the health care field to middle school students. SPS has used money from federal American Rescue Plan Act grants to pay college access coordinators who help introduce students to the field.
“One of the reasons I think our numbers have been low for participation as it relates to health care is that we haven’t exposed students,” Lathan said. “Once they see that the options are available right here in Southwest Missouri, it will change the number of students participating and moving through the alliance program.”
It is hoped that the program will also help keep students in southwest Missouri by giving them access to a comfortable career — something Higdon said OTC observes with students in its engineering and pharmacy programs.
Next steps: Accreditation, recruitment
SPS and OTC have the most immediate work to do. The two will develop an SPS Choice program similar to Fly SPS, a training program for aspiring pilots. The goal is to enroll 100 students for the fall 2024 semester.
Beyond that, the alliance will emphasize merging the programs and ensuring proper accreditation, even though all the programs melding together have their own accreditations. Smart said the process will involve a lot of hard work, and that the Higher Learning Commission will take its time ensuring proper accreditation.
Once completed, the process allows potential for creating a large pool of students earning valuable qualifications and making differences across the Ozarks’ medical industry.
“If we can build this pipeline of hundreds, maybe a thousand juniors or seniors moving into this program … we know it is going to grow. It’s just a matter of how it grows,” Higdon said. “If we can increase graduations across the board from the schools, community college and university by a thousand, then we have affected the health of every citizen of southwest Missouri.”
