ONEONTA, N.Y. — Bassett Healthcare Network, Hartwick College, and SUNY Oneonta have teamed up to create Bassett CARES, a workforce-development program aimed at keeping new college graduates in the area and addressing critical workforce shortages across Bassett’s network of facilities.

The CARES acronym stands for “career advancement and retention experience for students,” and Bassett hopes to take on up to 50 recent graduates from the two colleges annually to work full time for Bassett.

In return, participants will receive a student-loan repayment stipend of $5,000 every six months they remain employed with Bassett. Participants can receive up to $25,000 but no more than the total value of their loans if that amount is less than $25,000.

Bassett President/CEO Dr. Tommy Ibrahim, Hartwick College President Darren Reisberg, and SUNY Oneonta President Alberto Cardelle gathered at Bassett’s A.O. Fox Hospital in Oneonta Sept. 13 for a signing ceremony marking the program.

It’s just one step among many to help battle the workforce shortage in health care, says Christine Pirri, chief of workforce solutions at Bassett.

“This is open to all different positions,” she notes, not just patient-facing positions. “We need clean rooms. We need to make sure our employees are being fed; our patients are being fed.”

Bassett currently has about 700 open, non-physician positions across its network that includes five hospitals along with numerous community clinics, school clinics, nursing homes, and assisted-living facilities.

“We have a number of opportunities,” Pirri says. Along with the forementioned roles in environmental sciences and food services, there are openings in human resources, security, marketing, as well as nursing, laboratory, and radiology.

Bassett has partnered with the two colleges on other initiatives, and Bassett CARES builds on that foundation, she says.

Other recruitment and retention efforts include a $50 million investment into wages and compensation and an incentive program.

“You want to make sure you are providing competitive wages and building a strong pipeline,” Pirri says. To meet the need for strong leadership, Bassett is sending management employees to a leadership program by the Healthcare Association of New York State.

This past summer, Friends of Bassett launched a junior volunteer program for youth ages 14 to 18, and Bassett is working to identify and make available opportunities for college students to fill part-time or per-diem roles, Pirri says. Along with closing the workforce gap for Bassett, those roles provide students with valuable hands-on experience which is sometimes required for some higher-learning programs.

The goal of Bassett CARES, she says, is to not only find employees for Bassett but also to encourage young people to stay in the area.

Educational partners will offer free or subsidized on-campus housing in the summer for matriculated students working for Bassett during the summer months. SUNY Oneonta also plans to provide bridge housing for recent graduates for the summer directly following graduation.

“Bassett CARES embodies the leave of collaboration, recognizing that together, we can make a transformative impact on our region,” Reisberg said in a press statement. “Through the partnership, our students will gain exposure to the many different career opportunities in health care, from direct patient care to administrative roles, and help them choose a path that is both rewarding and fulfilling.”

Cardelle added, “Partnerships like this not only address workforce shortages but create an educational ecosystem that provides students with valuable educational and career opportunities.”       

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Bassett Healthcare Network’s post-graduate family nurse practitioner (FNP) residency program recently graduated six people at a ceremony at the Otesaga Resort and Hotel in Cooperstown.

The program is a rural-based, 12-month, full-time employment opportunity that provides an integrative training platform for new post-graduate nurse practitioners. The program developed by Dr. Gregory Rys, program director, has residents serve their year-long residencies with mentorships in family medicine across Bassett’s network.

Residents also complete rotations in specialty disciplines and inpatient services, and they participate in classroom didactics as part of program requirements.

“I am proud that Bassett Healthcare Network is pioneering a continuing academic program that both embraces our century-long commitment to medical education and gives unmatched opportunities to rising clinicians,” Bassett President/CEO Dr. Tommy Ibrahim contended in a news release. “In the three years this program has been in existence, of the 18 nurse practitioners who have completed residencies, 10 have chosen to continue their careers at Bassett.”

Two new graduates accepted positions at Bassett, one at its Cobleskill Primary Care location, and one at Bassett Cancer Institute, he added.

The initiative’s goals are to improve health outcomes and access for patients in rural areas and to provide new clinicians with practicum experiences after completing graduate coursework.

“This program provides participants with a wonderful platform to increase practice readiness of RN graduates entering the health-care delivery system, immediately following acquisition of their MSN (NP)/DNP degrees and certifications,” Rys said. “This year’s class demonstrated an exceptional level of dedication. We thank them for their commitment and wish them all the best on the next phase of their careers.”

The graduates are: Joel Evans, who accepted an FNP position at Cobleskill Primary Care; Alyson Felt, who took an FNP position at Community Health Center of The North Country; Michelle Gordon, who accepted an FNP position at Adelante Healthcare Peoria in Arizona; Hailey Ryan, who took an FNP position at Bassett Healthcare Network; Nichole Shene; and Drenell Yarde.