Healthcare Talent Partnership Initiative

Healthcare Talent Partnership Initiative

Addressing the healthcare talent attraction and retention crisis in the South Bend-Elkhart Region, through building partnerships.

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Why a Partnership?

Within the South Bend - Elkhart region, we face a healthcare talent attraction, development, and retention crisis. During the summer of 2022, casual conversations were held among leaders across higher education and healthcare to better understand how the talent crisis has affected our region. The open discussion allowed for awareness of how many organizations and programs are currently affected by the crisis. These discussions sparked the idea of a regional partnership that offers collaboration across different sectors. To determine what a partnership might look like for our region, a Higher Education-Healthcare Partnership Summit was held in September of 2022. The information collected from the Summit led to conducting interviews with existing partnerships around the United States to understand what has made them successful in attaining their goals. At the start of 2023, discussions were held with representatives of various organizations in our community that are passionate about winning the war for talent. Stay tuned for more information as this exciting initiative takes shape.

Our Region Today

In April 2022, a labor market study was done for the South Bend - Elkhart Regional Partnership, detailing the labor force in our region. This report covers various areas of the labor market, including demographic and workforce characteristics, industry analysis, occupation, wage, & benefit analysis, and a deeper dive into the healthcare and social assistance industry.

With a total of 33,033 jobs, the healthcare industry has the second-largest number of jobs in the region, however, the location quotient (LQ) is 0.90.  The location quotient (LQ) is a method of quantifying how concentrated a certain industry, cluster, occupation, or demographic group is in a region compared to the nation. We believe that this lower-than-average LQ reflects the need for more talent to meet demand in the healthcare industry.

The Top 5 Occupations in the Healthcare Industry for our Region (2020 Jobs)

  • 4,633 jobs, predicted job growth: 7%

  • 3,189 jobs, predicted job growth: 15%

  • 2,542 jobs, predicted job growth: 9%

  • 1,164 jobs, predicted job growth: 15%

  • 948 jobs, predicted job growth: 7%

Higher Education - Healthcare Summit

To collect data on a higher education/healthcare partnership for our region, a Summit was held on September 27, which consisted of representatives from higher education, healthcare, K-12 schools, and economic development organizations. During the event, there were roughly 40 participants that represented various organizations in attendance, providing many unique perspectives, a keynote speech that increased awareness of our talent attraction/retention issue, and an opportunity for collaboration among participants to address a series of questions.

Partnerships Across the United States

Following the information from the Summit, research was conducted to identify successful partnerships and understand their history and structure. Five partnerships were studied in particular, BioMed SA, Healthcare Workforce Partnership of W. Massachusetts, Center of Workforce Innovation - Healthcare Consortium, East Indiana Area Health Education Center - Simulation Consortium, and Health Improvement Partnership of Santa Cruz County. Each organization was eager and willing to share its history and offer advice in developing a partnership for our region.

The findings of interviews and themes heard at the Summit can be located below in the South Bend - Elkhart Region Higher Education - Healthcare Partnership Executive Summary

Executive Summary

Indiana University South Bend

1700 Mishawaka Ave
South Bend, IN 46615
Phone: 574-520-4872