A few years ago, Mountain Comprehensive Health Corporation in Letcher County created the RAISE, or Reach, Achieve, Inspire, Support and Employ, program after struggling to fill open positions.
Now, RAISE graduates are working as certified medical assistants, nurse practitioners, and in other critical health care jobs at the organization.
Teresa Dotson is chief operating officer and director of administrative affairs for MCHC.
"We have, clinical, administrative, and behavioral pathways. You can go all the way up administratively to a master's degree. You can go all the way clinically to a nurse practitioner level," Dotson said.
Dotson added that the program is expanding to add career pathways for certified autism specialists, doulas and dental assistants.
Out of 600 employees at MCHC, more than 200 have participated in the RAISE program.
Dotson said she believes the whole region benefits when health care workers understand their patients.
"And we're all about expansion to what the need of the community is. And so we decided, in order to meet that need, that we would truly build our own," Dotson said.
According to the Federal Health Resources and Services Administration, most counties in Kentucky are considered a Health Professional Shortage Area, with an acute lack of primary care providers.
More than 40 million rural Americans live in designated shortage areas, and federal projections warn the current supply isn’t enough to meet demand over the next decade, according to the National Rural Health Association.
