Part V
Continuing the Effort

Successful collaboration on a major undertaking such as the National Health Care Skill Standards Project requires the commitment of many individuals and organizations. This important cooperative effort has resulted in national standards for the health care industry that describe skills essential and appropriate for workers in health services. Furthermore, it has provided important information on how these standards can be tailored and implemented for local use in a variety of industry and educational applications.

Local health care delivery sites can use the standards as a framework for developing performance standards for specific functions, roles, and jobs. Job descriptions, evaluative skills checklists and recruitment, hiring and promotion criteria are all possible applications of these standards.

Labor can use the standards as a framework for understanding and communicating what is expected of the worker; in this way, union leaders can help prepare their members to acquire portable skills as well as foster career development. Union representatives may also wish to use the standards when evaluating hiring and promotion criteria and to plan for training and retraining needs. In short, the standards are a means of enabling workers to increase their employability in a continually changing marketplace.

Educational institutions can apply the standards as a framework for linking academic curricula to actual teaching practices, school to work, secondary education to post-secondary education, and students to their community. These connections will strengthen the health care community as a whole. In using the standards to develop curricula and assessments, educators can be confident that their students are well-prepared to find jobs and be successful in building careers.

The standards will link key aspects and participants of the health care community, including:

• students who want to be trained;
• entry-level workers who want to succeed in their new role;
• experienced workers who want to upgrade, update, or acquire new skills;
• labor unions who want to support existing workers;
• supervisors who want to increase their facility capabilities; and
• clients who want to be assured of quality health care.

Finally, health care providers, labor organizations, and educational facilities can use the standards as a common language and a common objective. The standards will be a tool for communicating to all stakeholders what is valued in students and in workers. All parties will find the standards integral in developing curriculum for training and/or retraining, as well as constructing instruments for assessment. The necessary next steps for the widespread implementation of voluntary national skill standards in health care include:

• Local development of performance standards in the form of model assessment tasks aligned to the NHCSSP content standards. A methodology similar to the initial standards development process described earlier can be applied: research to provide a conceptual foundation, committee development work, and a review strategy that incorporates multiple modes of evaluation.
  
  
• Development of formal links between the NHCSSP Standards and academic curricula and teaching practices. Recent federal legislation calls for schools to integrate vocational and academic education and provide students with a broad understanding of the industry they plan to enter. Schools will be able to use the standards in their efforts to fulfill such requirements.
  
  
• Creation of a cadre of organizations knowledgeable in and willing to use the NHCSSP information database. These groups will be able to help update and maintain the database as needed.
  
  

The National Health Care Skill Standards can play a key role in integrating the fragmented health care field. Standards can assist providers in delivering a seamless continuum of care by identifying areas of commonality in which coordination of care can be more easily accomplished. A number of initiatives have already been undertaken in an effort to respond to the far-reaching changes in health care. For instance, the Pew Health Professions Commission recently cosponsored, along with the Bureau of Health Professions (U.S. Public Health Service), a workshop on core curricula in allied health. It contributed to a reconceptualization regarding expectations of allied health skills in the future. Other agencies such as the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP) are questioning the role of occupational licensure and program accreditation. Recently the U.S. Department of Labor funded grants to test early retraining intervention for displaced health care workers. In each effort the NHCSSP Standards offer a unifying roadmap.

In addition to providing links within the health care community, the nearly two dozen standards projects -- regardless of whether funded through the Department of Labor or of Education -- have consulted with one another throughout to advance the cause of skill standards as a concept and to promote connections among industries. This cooperation ensures the development of links among the various sets of standards that facilitate, as necessary, worker movement, job flexibility, and career adaptability. Additionally, these crosswalks can contribute to better allocation of labor across industries and make worker distribution more congruent with demand.

The NHCSSP Standards provide a foundation that supports the growth of the health care community and the connections between its members as the community adapts to a new economic, political, and social environment. Ultimately, each institution must develop its own strategies for applying the National Health Care Skill Standards. We hope this document proves valuable in inspiring the various constituents in health care delivery to carry on the work begun here. These standards and this document, however, represent only the beginning of an evolving process. Every member of the health care community "owns" these standards and is now responsible for continuing the dialogue to ensure their relevancy and usefulness.

Our work on this three-year project is drawing to a close and currently we are "passing the torch" to the National Consortium on Health Science and Technology Education (NCHSTE). WestEd project staff has completed the foundation work: the printed standards in their current version and the establishment of a World Wide Web home page for the NHCSSP. Starting October 1, 1995, the NCHSTE is assuming responsibility for maintaining and updating the standards and the Internet site. Suggestions, comments and continued discussions are welcome and encouraged. Contact WestEd with your questions or comments (inside back cover for contact information).