Louisiana Administrative Code › Title 28 - EDUCATION › Part LXIX - Bulletin 107-Health Occupations Content Standards Curriculum Framework › Chapter 3 - National Health Care Skill Standards Project › Section LXIX-301 - Background Context

Current through Register Vol. 50, No. 6, June 20, 2024
A. The National
				Health Care Skill Standards Project brought together an innovative group of
				health, industry, labor, and educational organizations to develop skill
				standards for health care workers. The project, conducted in 19921996, was
				directed by WestEd (formerly Far West Laboratory). As one of the original 22
				pilot projects sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor and Education to
				identify skill standards for different industries, WestEd partnered with a host
				of organizations, including the National Consortium of Health Science and
				Technology Education, the Service Employees International Union, and over 100
				industry and education organizations. These diverse groups were convened with
				the goal of improving the nation's health care system by identifying and
				disseminating information on those skills required to deliver high quality
				health care.
B. Over the past 10
				years, health care has been one of the nation's fastest growing industries,
				currently accounting for approximately 13 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic
				Product. According to recent reports of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over
				nine percent of the total workforce is employed in the health care field. Rapid
				technological and biomedical advances have made the U.S. health care system the
				finest in the world. Yet it faces many challenges in the decades ahead,
				including an increasingly diverse client population, remodeled delivery
				systems, and new technology. To meet such challenges, health services of
				tomorrow must be radically different from those of today. Inpatient care will
				come to mean "intensive care." If current trends continue, most care will be
				delivered in outpatient centers or even in the client's home.
C. The decade of the 1990's has brought
				increasing awareness that revisions in health care delivery and financing are
				needed. Health care reform proposals have been written at the national, state,
				and organizational levels all across the nation. The ultimate goal is to
				deliver quality care at a price society can afford. To achieve this goal, one
				element of health care reform stands out as fundamental and essential: the
				education and training of the nation's over 10 million health care workers.
				Their level of knowledge and skill is critical. The National Health Care Skills
				Standards Project was a cooperative effort that resulted in national standards
				for the health care industry. These standards 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.
				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. In
				using the standards to develop curricula and assessments, educators can be
				confident that their students are well-prepared to find jobs and to be
				successful in building careers.
AUTHORITY NOTE:
				  Promulgated in accordance with R.S.6(A)(10) and
				  R.S.
				  17:10.