Thanks to donations from Intermountain Health, Jeffco Public Schools students in Colorado who will help build tomorrow’s healthcare workforce will learn with real medical equipment.

About four months ago, Intermountain Lutheran Hospital moved from its campus on 38th Avenue in Wheat Ridge to the new Lutheran Hospital at 44th Avenue and Interstate 70. After everyone moved out, some equipment and supplies remained.

At the same time, Tia Nemitz, assistant principal at Jeffco Public Schools Bear Creek High School, went on a chance hike with an Intermountain Health counselor.

The nurse, Community Benefit assistant vice president Katie Tiernan Johnson, shared how nurses were trained in fully equipped rooms at the new, yet-to-be-opened hospital. That gave Nemitz an idea.

Fast forward to this month and the delivery of several 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 aimed at training students for career paths.

“We want to reach more students with industry degrees so they can leave high school and get a job with a livable wage,” Nemitz said. She added that some students use the certification to work while continuing their higher education in healthcare.

Bear Creek students were training to become Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs), but had to leave campus for classes. With Lutheran’s donation, the school will open a CNA lab on campus. They will also hire a CNA instructor and offer classes in fall 2025.

Nemitz said they hope to increase the number of spots available to students. They also plan to expand the opportunity to students at Dakota Ridge, Columbine and Chatfield high schools.

Word of the Intermountain Lutheran Hospital donation caught the attention of Arvada High School social studies and health sciences teacher David Feeney. He recently walked the halls of the shuttered hospital with Tyler Shields, Intermountain’s assistant project manager, to find items for his students.

Feeney is building the healthcare career path at Arvada and hopes to add emergency medical technician certifications to his current patient care technician course. The donation of equipment helped shorten his schedule, Arvada Principal Caroline Frazee said.

Shields is responsible for the decommissioning of the former Lutheran hospital and said the donation from Jeffco Public Schools was one of several he helped coordinate. Intermountain is proud to make the donations and help build programs in the community that train the future health care workforce, he said.

About Intermountain Health

Headquartered in Utah, with offices in six states and additional offices in the Western United States. Intermountain Health is a nonprofit system of 34 hospitals, approximately 400 clinics, medical groups with approximately 4,600 employed physicians and advanced care providers, a health insurance division called Select Health with more than one million members and other health services. To help people live the healthiest lives possible, Intermountain is committed to improving community health and is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare by leveraging evidence-based best practices to consistently deliver high-quality outcomes at sustainable costs to deliver. For the latest information and announcements, visit the Intermountain Health newsroom at https://intermountainhealthcare.org/news.