Health Care continues to be one of the fastest growing industries in California and faces unprecedented challenges to its delivery systems. The California Community College Chancellor's Office and it's Economic and Workforce Development Program has established the California Community College Health Care Initiative to provide education and training programs  to meet these emerging demands for health care delivery.

 Economic & Workforce Development Program (EWD)

The Chancellor's Office EWD coordinates programs and projects in the California Community Colleges that are funded through competitive grants for economic and workforce development activities.  The EWD was designed to leverage resources and connections within the community college system. By linking projects together, the program can increase every project's access to the rich and deep expertise and intellectual resources that exist in the colleges across the state.  The program allows best practices that are developed in one arm of the projects to be replicated without delay or additional cost in other projects.

 Health Care Initiative

The purpose of the Health Care Initiative is to provide education and training programs to meet emerging demands for health care industry workers; to determine needs, facilitate development of innovative solutions and to locate resources to implement planned responses; to evaluate and initialize health-related educational programs.

 Regional Health Occupations Resource Centers (RHORCs)

The California Community College Health Care Initiative includes eight Regional Health Occupations Resource Centers strategically located across the state. The purpose of the RHORCs is to provide a mechanism for community colleges to address the needs of the health care industry. RHORC staff develop partnerships that encourage collaboration between health care employers and education providers from all segments. They also complete needs assessments, job analyses, curricula and resource development, training, certification testing and employee referrals to health care industry employers. The centers focus the services of qualified community colleges on the critical needs of the Health Care industry anticipating high job growth in that industrial sector. 

Statewide Health Occupations Advisory Committee (SWHOAC)

The SWHOAC is the oversight committee for the California Community College Health Care Initiative. The committee helps connect the needs with the outcomes by advising the Health Care Initiative participants on business trends, needed special services, curriculum design, distance education, and computer based training in both FTE generating and Contract Education programs. It also advises on new worker skill sets and helps get the word out to business and industry regarding community college programs and services throughout California.

Health Care Initiative Director
James L. Comins, RN, MS

With over twenty years of teaching, contract education development, and management experience in the Los Rios Community College District, Jim Comins comes to the position of Health Care Initiative Director with a strong background in education, health care, grant coordination, and economic development. Formerly a caculty member in the Associate Degree Nursing program at Sacramento City College, he assumed the position of Health Care Initiative Director in 1999. In September 2002 he took on the position of Associate Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development with Sacramento City College.