“I am so appreciative of the support Community provided in helping me pay for my master’s program,” said Guire. “It was a huge motivator for me to take that next step in my career and continue to grow professionally.”
In a region with historically chronic shortages of healthcare professionals — especially nurses and doctors — Community is addressing this scarcity by creating in-house training programs, providing clinical experience for students from local schools, offering scholarships and tuition reimbursement, and partnering with higher education organizations to expand opportunities.
Tuition assistance helps advance careers in the Valley
In the past two fiscal years, Community has invested more than $1 million in tuition assistance to encourage nearly 550 team members to grow their careers here in the Valley.The tuition reimbursement program supports a wide variety of disciplines and needs, including human resources, information systems, as well as nursing. Employees have been able to advance skills in everything from vascular ultrasound to electrocardiogram interpretation and running clinical trials.
Guire, who earned her Master of Science in nursing (MSN) with the University of Phoenix, has been with Community for 10 years. She says the tuition reimbursement program and getting a discount on class prices through Community’s partnership with University of Phoenix helped her expand her leadership opportunities and advance her career.
“The greatest challenge was finding time to complete school,” Guire said. But juggling a demanding job and school helped her grow as a leader.
“The MSN program helped me improve my communication and project planning skills — it enabled me to successfully expand our new discharge lounge at Community Regional,” she added. The discharge lounge helps create more bed space for critically ill or injured patients by moving those ready to go home out of needed hospital rooms and into a comfortable and supervised waiting area until transportation arrives.
Community helped Guire pay for her education program, and she received two free classes through the University of Phoenix. She credited these forms of assistance as motivators to get her advanced degree.
“Providing tuition reimbursement as a benefit to our employees is something we are really proud of at Community,” said Carla Milton, senior vice president of human resources. “In our latest employee survey, our team members continued to give us high marks for providing great professional development and career growth opportunities.”
Guire encouraged other Community team members to take advantage of this opportunity: “The University of Phoenix has an excellent program to help with work/life balance. Their program is flexible and instructors are very supportive of those having a full-time job or family.”
