Jefferson’s Community Health Worker Academy recruits workers with no background in healthcare but who have lived experience. The academy, which launched its first cohort in April 2023, trains candidates in community health work for 13 months. Upon graduation, they are offered a position at the system.
These reskilled workers come from all walks of life, but tend to have a background in minimum wage jobs, like food service and janitorial work.
Before the program, the system had 12 community health workers. Two years later, it has 40.
What they do
Community health workers, employed by the system and embedded into clinical teams, are paired with patients with social needs. They support the system and patients in three core areas: healthcare navigation, acting as liaisons between hesitant community members and providers, and connecting patients to social and community resources.
The strategy is rare in an industry where most health systems secure contracts with nonprofit organizations for community health workers. Usually, these workers do not work side by side with clinicians.
But Jefferon’s community health workers make home visits, help patients with telehealth, advocate for patient needs with insurance, pharmacies and providers, organize rides to medical appointments, address patient mistrust and fear around healthcare, reduce administrative burden, and more.
“CHWs spend time with patients in ways that doctors, nurses and social workers simply can’t,” Christine James, PhD, LSW, director of the Community Health Workers Collective at Jefferson, told Becker’s. “Their work has an immediate and measurable impact — we see it almost instantly when they engage with patients. We are still building out our formal data metrics, but early findings are overwhelmingly positive.”
For patients, these workers have increased patient satisfaction, promoted higher patient engagement and helped patients get specialist referrals faster.
In one case, a pediatric patient did not have a wheelchair that fit properly. The patient was told they would have to wait about six months to see a specialist and get the right equipment. The family’s community health worker got to work and within a few days, found a provider that could fill the patient’s needs right away.
The program also benefits community health workers by providing them with marketable skills, financial stability and encouraging them to improve their own health.
The program’s expansion
In its second cohort, which will graduate in May, the program expanded its cohort size to 15 people. When recruiting for cohort two, the program received over 100 applications in a week. Each applicant participates in a phone screen, then several participate in in-person interviews.
“The goal is to recruit people from the community who have lived experience — and that can mean many things,” Dr. James said. “We don’t require prior healthcare experience — just a high school diploma, lived experience, and a passion for serving the community. By the time they graduate, they earn Pennsylvania’s CHW certification and gain a year of hands-on experience, setting them up for long-term success.”
The candidates chosen for the program share a few common characteristics: they grew up in under-resourced areas and want to give back, they have lived experiences such as recovering from substance use, formerly incarcerated or are cancer survivors, and have received help from healthcare teams and want to do the same for others.
While most community health worker programs last about six to eight weeks, Jefferson wanted to create a comprehensive program that teaches everything. The 13-month long program can be intimidating for some, but most participants stay on at the system as full time employees with benefits.
Unlike recent college graduates and others who enter the healthcare industry by more traditional routes, reskilled workers have challenges with technology literacy. Some have never used email or scheduling software and many find working in the electronic health record a daunting task.
Creating success for them includes helping them gain confidence in their technology skills and providing ongoing training.
“We’ve seen incredible growth in these workers — they change their own narratives as they progress,” Dr. James said.
Currently, Jefferson is building a career ladder that would have positions such as senior CHW, lead CHW and case management and patient navigator roles.
“Many CHWs don’t want to return to school but still want career growth opportunities,” she said. “Others are interested in nursing, social work, or other clinical roles, and we encourage them to use tuition reimbursement to pursue those paths.”
To get a similar program started at your system, Dr. James suggests a few things: leverage your existing workforce training program; build partnerships with community-based organizations for recruitment; follow best practices; prioritize trauma-informed, supportive supervision for community health workers both in and out of training; and understand state certification requirements.
