Youth Empowered Modern Connected Health Technology and Self-Care Literacy Pilot

Youth economic advancement

County of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a countywide benefit) Central LA East LA South LA San Gabriel Valley West LA San Fernando Valley Gateway Cities South Bay Long Beach Antelope Valley City of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a citywide benefit)

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

The healthcare workforce shortage, which can affect quality healthcare access, is a multifaceted problem with several interconnected causes, including an aging population, increasing demand for healthcare services, burnout, high turnover rates, and a limited pipeline of new professionals. These factors lead to a shortfall of doctors, nurses, technicians, and other vital healthcare workers, impacting patient care and system sustainability. Native American People have historically been highly under-represented in the medical fields (0.4%). New scalable modern connected health technologies, will be part of the provider patient care solution needed to overcome these staff shortages. Our entry-level pilot program will address both the general workforce shortage, but with a targeted micro training pathway, also address a high demand modern health technology knowledge gap, necessary for successful clinic level integration, and to grow patient self-care literacy through trained professionals.

This grant will help Native American Made launch this student entry-level career pathway pilot throughout Los Angeles County, first creating a visible healthcare leadership role (NAM) that can inspire purpose driven identity for our Native youth, and enhance our existing Indigenous Youth Program. Los Angeles County is known to have the highest concentration of urban Native American population nationwide. Native Americans have been extremely underrepresented in the medical fields, and this grant will eliminate visibility barriers by showcasing worthy representation being apart of general modern healthcare solutions. Bringing health awareness and purpose to younger Native and non-native generations can directly and indirectly help reverse a current indigenous population extinction threat due to pre-mature chronic health conditions. Similar conditions are on the rise in our greater American population.
Secondly, this grant will help build the workforce pipeline by engaging our inherently tech-savvy Native and non-native youth with introduction to Modern Connected Health Technologies, and incentivizing a groundbreaking entry-level micro-pathway offered through our DrKumo Academy collaboration. Online Digital Health Technology (DHT) training, certification, and mentorship will Segway new apprentice opportunities working with scalable modern connected health patient care solutions now being integrated or readied for implementation into existing clinic level patient care workflows.

Los Angeles County will be a leader in Native American healthcare workforce representation, and will become a National Leader in modern digital healthcare workforce development, as well as modern "Self-Care" patient literacy.
An educated and new technology trained professional workforce will be paramount to integrating, developing, and evolving new modern healthcare solutions now becoming available. A shift from reactive care to preventative care is inevitable, and will be more than welcomed by many patients whom depend on their healthcare professionals for general health, wellness, and "Self Care" knowledge. Our current healthcare workforce shortage is a local and world-wide crisis needing a pipeline solution where we believe our incentivized program will be essential. Our proposed micro-pathway training can open up new entry-level career channels that will help facilitate necessary scalable clinic/patient workflow changes currently happening and being proposed at the clinic level.