The Institute for Emerging Health Professions at Philadelphia-based Thomas Jefferson University was established about seven years ago as an incubator and an accelerator for new roles in the healthcare industry. The institute is part of Jefferson’s College of Health Professions. Michael Dryer, dean of the college, discussed the institute’s programs to support an evolving healthcare workforce. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What were some of the institute’s early efforts?
We began launching a variety of certificates and degrees, trying to identify where the needs of the healthcare workforce were going. The programs we started early on were things like medical cannabis, telehealth, digital health, integrative health, those sorts of things. We pivoted a little bit around the pandemic.
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What changes did you implement as a result of the pandemic?
Coming out of the pandemic, we focused on a growing workforce shortage, critical for us [at Jefferson] and critical nationally. We began to build programs and an innovative structure that would help to deal with the demand for health professionals. So for example, we launched an online program to grow the respiratory therapy workforce, in partnership with National Jewish Health in Denver, with a cohort in Philadelphia and in Denver. We also started an online program in medical laboratory science. We collaborated with national labs such as Quest and Labcorp to build out the medical laboratory science workforce.
We also began to embrace an earn- while-you-learn model, and began embedding the learning into the work. We’ve included that in our medical laboratory science program and a cardiovascular perfusion program. We’re getting ready to launch a new program in health insurance management.
What’s the balance between in-person and virtual programs?
Some programs are hybrid, with short-term clinical training associated with them. The majority of our programs are online. But we’ve tried to incorporate employers into the training, education and preparation of these individuals.
So our approach allows us to do this nationally, with the students getting their clinical training validated through their employer. We’re providing the didactic education and oversight of the clinical education, but the day-to-day oversight is being done on-site in the labs and in the hospitals around the country.
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What’s the oldest program at the institute?
The oldest program is rooted in our medical cannabis work. We received funding, started the Lambert Center for the Study of Medical Cannabis & Hemp, and launched a series of certificates related to medical cannabis. We then incorporated those certificates through a stacking model, where we offer a series of certificates with some capstone work to grant a master’s degree.
So that was the first program, and it has grown steadily. We’ve incorporated the three dimensions of the cannabis space: the science of cannabis and how it can be applied, the medical applications for cannabis, and how to commercialize it and be successful as it moves into a whole different arena nationally. It’s been very successful for us and has very broad appeal in a rapidly growing market.
What are your largest programs currently?
The cannabis program still has the largest number of students. But there are others that are deeper and larger. Our perfusion program is smaller, but it’s much longer and more intensive.
Early on, during the pandemic, we offered a basic telehealth course when the demand was just getting started. When people were trying to figure out how to examine a patient online using telehealth, that’s something Jefferson had been doing for a number of years. So we had some experience there.
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We had this very truncated program in telehealth that provided practitioners the basics. We had over 1,000 people take that program in six months just because they needed the skill set. That’s still true today. Now we have a variety of ways to provide those skills through programs that are expanding in length and complexity.
What’s your process for identifying emerging health professions and creating new programs?
We believe we’re in a unique position and a unique place. We’re not just a university, we’re a large academic health science center with 18 hospitals and an insurance company. So we’re learning it from our clinical side. And as the challenges are evolving within our own clinical environment and within our own providers, it allows us to get that feedback and understand what the needs are and begin to get in front of them.
