BETHLEHEM, Pa. — The need for more health care workers is the catalyst behind new programming — and a new facility — at Northampton County Community College.
Officials on Tuesday cut the ribbon on NCC's new Interdisciplinary Healthcare Education and Workforce Development Center.
The school secured federal funding to expand its health education offerings.
The new center "offers interdisciplinary training for our nursing, our program development, radiography, sonography, radio, respiratory nursing, medical assisting, EMT, funeral services," NCC Dean of the School of Health Professions and Science Judy Rex said.
"So they all can use this, and they all can learn together.”
Rex said it now offers cardiac sonography and respiratory care training, a state-of-the-art simulation center and a center for interdisciplinary health sciences workforce development.
“We learned during COVID that we didn't have enough supports to help us with online," she said. "This is able to do both.”
'This is going to really help'
The simulation labs have cameras built in so students can watch in real time what is being done in the lab or go back to review their work and discuss the process.
Rex said U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, D-Lehigh County, was instrumental in getting the money for the project through community project funding.
"This is going to really help our healthcare networks with more well skilled staff who can do all different kinds of things."Congresswoman Susan Wild, D-Lehigh Valley
"This is going to really help our health care networks with more well skilled staff who can do all different kinds of things," said Wild, who toured the center in Penn Hall on the community college campus.
"The things we're learning here today are amazing, sonography, respiratory therapy and obstetrics and nursing.
"I just think it's a really important offering that Northampton has been committed to for a long time now, and I was really pleased that they reached out and asked for assistance with community project funding, which we were able to get and really help them get this off the ground.”
The demonstration following the ribbon cutting included a look at the new health care equipment and demonstrations of the health care mannequins that teach students how to respond to real world clinical scenarios.
'Benefit the community'
"I'm typically the person that likes learning hands on," student Leia Schreckinger of Bethlehem said. "I'm not a good book learner.
"I love being able to touch things and play around with things, ask questions as I'm doing it, so these in person labs where you can see things and play around with it and curate all these curiosities and situations, it's really great."
The project was fully funded with a $2,729,288 Federal Earmark Grant. Northampton Community College had to submit an application, and the funding was awarded in June 2023 and runs through June 2026.
"It's part of the appropriations process and what happens is that they're called ‘community project funding’ and it has to be something that will benefit the community," Wild said.
"It can't be like something specific to just a small group of people and there's a very rigorous application project."
She said her office gets about 100 applications a year and has to choose 10 of them to pass on to the appropriations committee with recommendations.
School officials said most of their health students are offered jobs in their field before they graduate.
Program lengths vary depending on the field of study.
