2023 Center of Excellence Award
NEOAHEC Won a National Award!
The National AHEC Organization (NAO), which represents over 300 AHECs nationwide, awarded NEOAHEC with the Center of Excellence award for Health Careers Student Recruitment at the 2023 NAO Biennial Conference. The event, held June 27-30, 2023, was the first conference since 2018 due to the pandemic. As this is one of only three awards given nationwide at each conference, NEOAHEC is incredibly honored to have received this recognition.
As executive Director Meredith Lair puts it, “Receiving this award from the NAO reflects the powerful belief in our organization’s purpose that is held tightly by our entire team past and present. It is humbling to have the work of our tiny organization in the national spotlight and provides a great amount of encouragement to continue working hard for the future of health in our region."
In the nomination for the award, the comprehensiveness of NEOAHEC's programming was emphasized. We provide pathway programs that give health career education to students of all ages from middle school students to matriculated graduate-level health profession learners. Several of these programs exist in partnership with the community, including our Pre-Health Society that focuses on mentorship for students from Eastern Oregon University (EOU) and gap year students; the collaboration with the Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU) School of Nursing on the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) Program; the support for matriculated learners on their rural rotations; and our health career exploration camp, MedQuest, which is a collaboration with a variety of healthcare facilities, schools, and local organizations. The nomination also detailed one of our success stories, Yessenia Garcia-Sanchez, BSN, as she is a wonderful example of someone who participated in pathway programming from middle school through matriculation, and remains connected to NEOAHEC by serving as a board member and MedQuest counselor.
The continuation of programming like MedQuest through the pandemic was something the NEOAHEC team felt was necessary to sustain health career exploration for young students and keep the pathway alive. By turning our longitudinal MedQuest program into a virtual experience for students from 2020-2022, we learned how to reduce barriers for participants and empowered student feedback to lead the expansion of this long-standing program. In 2023, MedQuest expanded by hosting our La Grande camp, our virtual camp, and also starting two additional camps in The Dalles and Burns. Between two overnight camps, a day camp, and a virtual MedQuest, NEOAHEC served 79 students.
The Healthy Oregon Workforce Training Opportunity (HOWTO) grant that NEOAHEC was awarded shortly before the pandemic was crucial in the expansion of the OHSU School of Nursing PMHNP program to a distance model serving the learners in eastern Oregon. This grant-funded initiative also persisted through the time of unknown, and it had its first cohort finish the program and enter the nursing workforce in a career of very high need throughout the nation.
The expansion of programs that educate and inspire place-bound learners is crucial to our mission to collaborate across the state to increase access to health career education in our region. Patty Barfield, Chair of the NEOAHEC Board, sees the importance of the work NEOAHEC does given the current healthcare workforce crisis. She says, "When I think of how we grow and develop a sustainable rural nursing workforce, the quote by Hellen Keller comes to mind. 'Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.' How well we partner and collaborate with rural health organizations like NEOAHEC will define our success. Nursing cannot do this alone. Together is the only path forward."
Back Row: Carissa Cummings; Liz Sieders, PA-C; Nikkita Titus, MSN, RN; Yessenia Garcia-Sanchez, RN; Andrea Flores; Michelle Mudder