Inova HS partners with DOD to train nurses

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From the Washington Business Journal: Inova Health System partners with DOD to train nurses - Washington Business Journal:

The Department of Defense and Inova Health System announced Friday a joint effort to recruit, train and license military spouses in health care and nursing jobs in Northern Virginia.

The Military to Medicine program was created to meet the needs of hospitals and military families.

Of the 675,000 husbands and wives of active-duty military personnel in the country, 77 percent report that they need or want work. That leaves more than half a million people looking for jobs that will allow them to relocate easily, and offer them flexibility for childcare if a spouse is serving away from home.

On the other side, hospitals nationwide are suffering from a lack of trained nurses. Some industry experts predict a nursing shortage of as many as 1 million by 2015.

“We have a national shortage of allied health professionals across the countries, and we have spouses looking for positive, portable careers,” Leslye Arsht, deputy under secretary of defense for military community and family policy, said in a statement.

Inova Health Systems and DOD plan to rollout the Military to Medicine program nationally, offering education, training, certification and licensing, as well as incentives for those already in the fields of health care and nursing to remain in those jobs while their spouses serve in the military.

The long-term goal of the project would be to create a system for military spouses working in health care facilities, allowing them to be reassigned to new areas easily and cut back on the time they are unemployed between moves.

“What we’d really like to see over time is that if we have a cadre of spouses … we can eventually help them move from one system to another,” Arsht said. “And that’s really part of the effort here... to help spouses choose a successful career that’s high in demand and portable.”

Inova, the not-for-profit health care system based in Northern Virginia that employs more than 15,000 people in its hospitals, nursing homes, emergency and urgent care centers, has a similar program with the Army, training new Army Reserve soldiers for jobs in areas of critical clinical support.

Similarly, the DOD has a partnership with Re/Max that offers training and professional opportunities for military spouses in real estate.