Donations of medical equipment and supplies from Intermountain Health to Jeffco Public Schools will help build tomorrow’s healthcare workforce enabling students to learn in real-life settings.
About four months ago, Intermountain’s Lutheran Medical Center moved from its campus on 38th Avenue in Wheat Ridge to the new Lutheran Hospital on 44th Avenue and Interstate 70. After everyone moved out, some equipment and supplies remained.
At that same time, Tia Nemitz, assistant principal from Jeffco Public Schools Bear Creek High School, had a fortuitous hike with an Intermountain Health caregiver.
The caregiver, Associate Vice President of Community Benefit Katie Tiernan Johnson, shared how caregivers were training at the new hospital, not yet opened, in fully equipped rooms. That gave Nemitz an idea.
Fast forward to this month and the delivery of multiple donated beds, mannequins, wheelchairs, stethoscopes, gloves, and more to Bear Creek and Arvada High School.
Nemitz explained that Bear Creek participates in Alternative Cooperative Education, a program that aims to train students in career paths.
“What we want to do is get more students with an industry certification so they can leave high school and get into a job with a livable wage,” Nemitz said. She added that some students use the certification to work while they continue their college education in healthcare.
Bear Creek students were training to become certified nursing assistants (CNAs), but they had to travel off campus for classes. With the donation from Lutheran, the school will open a CNA lab on campus. They will hire a CNA teacher and offer classes in fall 2025. Nemitz said they hope to increase the number of spots available for students. They also plan to extend the opportunity to students at Dakota Ridge, Columbine and Chatfield high schools.
Word of Lutheran’s donation spread and piqued the interest of Arvada High School social studies and health sciences teacher David Feeney. He recently walked the halls of the closed hospital with Intermountain associate project manager Tyler Shields to find items for his students.
Feeney is building the healthcare career pathway at Arvada with hopes of adding emergency medical technician certifications to his current class for patient care technicians. The donation of equipment has helped speed up his timeline, said Arvada principal Caroline Frazee.
Shields is responsible for decommissioning the former Lutheran hospital, and said the Jeffco Public Schools donation is one of several he helped coordinate. Intermountain is proud to make the donations and help build programs in the community that will educate the future healthcare workforce, he said.
