NW Regional Consortium Wins Award for a Workforce Best Practice Good Idea

The Northwest Radiologic Technology Consortium won a Good Idea award presented at the 2003 Workforce Training & Education Coordinating Board’s annual leadership conference in Wenatchee.The eighteen organizational members of the Consortium include health care employers and six community and technical colleges. These partners are collaborating to address the shortage of radiologic technologists by providing students greater access to this career path in the Northwest. The Northwest Alliance for Health Care Skills identified the need for “rad techs” after conducting a thorough study of the skill and occupation needs of NW health care employers. Interestingly, rad techs did not appear as a skill set in the existing labor market data, but was a well documented need through the Alliance’s regional research methodology. The Radiologic Technology program uses a blend of distance and in-person instruction including traditional classroom, interactive TV with sites at Bellingham Technical College and Everett Community College, online instruction, in-person labs, and clinical experience. Thirty two students, two cohorts of sixteen students each, entered the program January 2002 and expect to graduate in June 2004. A seventh college will join the consortium in January 2004, adding a third cohort of students to meet the needs of Northwest employers in the health care industry. <<< Back