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SAW Program Builds Employees' Confidence for College

 |  By HealthLeaders Media Staff  
   July 13, 2009

Yolanda Salas always wanted to be an RN. The Chicago native and billing clerk at St. Anthony Hospital had plans to go to college after she graduated from high school in 1995, but then life happened. She got married, had two kids, and with each passing year college seemed a little more remote.

In the last eight months, however, that lifelong ambition has gone from a dream to a reality. After graduating next month from St. Anthony's new in-house "School At Work" program, Salas, 32, will begin classes this fall at nearby Wright College with the short-term goal of becoming an LPN, and then incrementally working toward her RN certificate.

Salas was one of 18 employees picked from the 950 full- and part-time employees at the 150-licensed-bed community hospital in Chicago's gritty west side for the first 32-week SAW course in February to brush up on their reading, language, computer literacy, and math skills, and to introduce them to basic medical terminology, anatomy, physiology, and medical ethics.

"What I gained the most is getting confidence because I had so much time out of school," Salas says. "I was starting to get nervous about how different it would be back in school so many years after I left. The program gave me a lot of confidence, especially my coach and my classmates and the whole hospital gave us the support to go back to school."

While School at Work is new at St. Anthony's, the idea was developed about 15 years ago by Lynn Fischer, founder/CEO of Catalyst Learning Center. SAW gives employers the tools to "grow their own" workforces, which will reduce turnover, improve morale, and give entry-level employees the opportunities to improve their lives. Everybody wins.

SAW wasn't designed specifically for hospitals, it just seems that way. It's hard to imagine a better environment for the program to flourish. The demand for healthcare workers—although slowed of late because of the recession—is expected to grow as the nation ages. Hospitals routinely hire dozens of entry level employees, many of whom crave the opportunity to improve their lives. About 370 hospitals in 41 states have adopted the program, which uses job coaches, mentors, DVD and Internet classes, and traditional workbooks. The students also used the class time to prepare for college entry tests, fill out admissions applications, and organize their finances so they could apply for financial aid.

Of the 18 employees who began the SAW course at St. Anthony's in February, all 18 will graduate on Aug. 13, and all of them are either planning to attend college or prepping for the GED, with the expectation that they will attend college eventually. That 100% success rate has surprised even Pamela Jones, a veteran workforce development manager at St. Anthony's who was hired to run SAW.

"Usually, with different programs in workforce development, you might get 75% retention," Jones says. "With this one the reason why they've hung in there is they have a lot of support internally at the hospital and it came from the top down."

Perhaps the most critical components in the success of SAW, Jones says, is the top-to-bottom support of the hospital leadership, and the decision to conduct the two-hours-a-week classes on hospital grounds immediately after the employees' shift is completed.

"If you let them get home, that's it. Lights out. Nothing is happening," Jones says. "They are surrounded by everything and anything that can distract them from their studies. I believe that piece is really what makes this model work. They are in a different environment at work. They clock out and come upstairs to class. There are no gaps."

Even with "no gaps," getting employee-students to show up for class isn't easy because of any number of problems outside of work. If one of the students is absent, Jones will stop class and find out where they are. When Jones learned that one student was severely ill, she went to the student's home with her homework. One student was "living in and out of her car," so Jones secured a two-year rent subsidy. One man had amassed more than $10,000 in motor vehicle fines because his license plate had been stolen. Jones went to court with the man to get the tickets resolved.

St. Anthony's SAW is funded by a $130,000 grant, half of which comes from the hospital's foundation, and the remaining money is from two Chicago-area organizations. It seems like money well spent.

These are exactly the kinds of targeted grants that should be encouraged, because they're not just throwing money at a problem, they're designed to succeed. First, the talent pool has already cleared the first hurdle, merely by having a job. If you've got a job, you've got enough ambition to get out of bed every day. Second, the hospital screens a pool of applicants to determine the best candidates, thus furthering the chances for success. Then, the program director aggressively insists on attendance and compliance from the students, working to ensure they get their preparatory work completed while instilling confidence.

On Aug. 13, Jones says, St. Anthony is planning a SAW graduation ceremony and a reception. CEO Guy Medaglia and other hospital leaders will be there too. Jones wants to invite the foundations that funded the grant, and she wants some local politicians to come too, so they can see a successful program up close and personal.

Of course, the guests of honor will be the 18 SAW students. "They are really excited about that," Jones says, "because it looked like a place they could never enter."


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