The health care field is growing. Over the past 10-plus years at CMH, we’ve added many services to care for our patients’ needs locally. The response and growth in patient volumes has been astounding, which has required our team to nimbly and creatively fill open positions. Our leadership team has worked creatively and strategically to hire the people who are most needed. Read about some of our innovative hiring programs that help provide care for you, right here on the North Coast. Growing our team Our strategies to have the right caregivers to meet community needs On-the-job experience with the Medical Assistant Internship Program For the past several years, CMH has offered scholarships to students in the certified nursing assistant and medical assistant programs at Clatsop Community College. “What we saw as a barrier to those potentially attending the college program is they may have to quit their job — and they can’t go without an income for nine months,” says Jeanette Schacher, director of the CMH-OHSU Health Medical Group. “So we collaborated with an educational company to develop a structured curriculum that allows us to train MAs through a comprehensive internship program.” CMH welcomed its first two medical assistant interns in December 2024, with a new cohort starting this June. The program is a paid six-month internship with the curriculum and hands-on clinical hours to obtain a medical assistant certification. Interns learn medical terminology and anatomy, how to room patients and obtain vital signs, how to document within a medical record, phlebotomy, vaccine administration, and more. While training, interns are full-time employees of CMH and eligible for benefits. When they complete the program, CMH will pay for their national certification exam, and they agree to work full- or parttime for CMH for one year. “The two that we started [initially] have been phenomenal; they’re doing great,” Schacher says. Nicole Murphy, quality and training coordinator, helps train our first two medical assistant interns on administering vaccines. Pharmacy techs trained on-site Manager and pharmacist Jeff Chow, PharmD, says the department was struggling to hire pharmacy technicians in 2021 when the hospital’s two outpatient pharmacies in Astoria and Seaside were beginning to serve more patients. Because of the certification that’s required for pharmacy techs, Chow was not getting qualified applicants. He went to the hospital’s leadership team to propose an on-the-job training program, and they were fully supportive. “We’ve been lucky in that we have had seven caregivers who have made it through our program,” he explains. “Two former CMH pharmacy technicians are furthering their education in pursuit of becoming pharmacists. So the program has been very successful.” Individuals hired as pharmacy techs receive a syllabus and training materials and are assigned a trainer. While much 4 HEALTH COMPASS Late Spring 2025
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