Peoria City Council member Kiran Velpula sees a new medial and educational partnership as a way to build the city’s health care workforce and boost the regional economy.
Velpula, who is also an assistant professor at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Peoria [UICOMP], is one of the driving forces behind the Greater Peoria Healthcare Education Consortium that officially launched last week after several years in development.
“What we want to do, or the consortium wants to do, is give that opportunity to the students or the families to say, ‘Oh, if you go to this career, you have an opportunity right here in Peoria,” said Velpula.
The initiative brings together Peoria Public Schools, Illinois Central College, Bradley University and UICOMP, in cooperation with Carle Health and OSF HealthCare, to establish a pathway into medical careers.
Velpula said the mission of the consortium is to offer a specified curriculum pathway from grade school through ICC and Bradley with an ultimate goal of advancing to UICOMP in pursuit of a career in the healthcare fields.
“The idea is, a majority of the kids decide whether they want to do medicine, or they want to do engineering or whatever career path, they decide early in the middle school, by seventh grade or eighth grade,” said Velpula.
“For us, I have two goals: one, to build the workforce development; two, to kind of empower Peoria for a financial growth. So we need to retain the talent. We don’t want to import the talent; we want to build the talent. It takes time, I know that it takes time.”
Velpula said they started bringing together the various educational partners to develop the consortium about four years ago, emerging from a desire to build up the healthcare workforce following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Then we realized that it would be incomplete if we don’t rope in the health care institutions, because we produce the students, meaning the educational institutions produce the talent,” said Velpula. “But that talent should be retained, meaning you have to have one end of the employers to be there with you.”
Velpula said he doesn’t believe there’s any diminished interest in medical careers, but rather access to the educational path is the key.
"There is a need for health care workers in this town, because we are a healthcare city," he said, noting the medical fields employ tens of thousands across the Greater Peoria region. "Because of the new cancer center, because of the newest medical facilities that are coming to Peoria, we need more and more health force, and we want to bring it here."
Velpula said another noteworthy component for the consortium is receiving the backing from the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council as it seeks to develop funding opportunities.
“It will be extremely helpful for us, because they have the muscle. They can actually go to the community and say, ‘this is the program.’ It’s like putting the horse in front of the cart,” said Velpula.
“Every educational institution has their own agenda, they have to do their own stuff. But now, since we created a baby, this baby will be nursed and grown by GPDC.”
