Health Careers Futures Board Discusses Health Workforce Pipeline and Ways to Introduce Youth to Health Careers
Type: News
Focus Area: Workforce Development
Kiran Tevar addresses questions from Health Careers Futures Board members.
On August 22, the Health Careers Futures Board (HCF) met to discuss health workforce pipelines and strategies to bolster various health sectors, including maternal and child health, behavioral health, aging, and long-term care. Amid these crucial talks, the spotlight turned to innovative approaches to engage the next generation of healthcare professionals.
The meeting led up to a guest presentation by Kiran Tevar, a junior at Shady Side Academy, who introduced MedPath, a program he designed to help students explore diverse careers within the healthcare industry. Drawing from his personal experience growing up in a medical family, Tevar recognized that many of his peers lacked exposure to the wide range of opportunities in health care. This inspired him to create a platform that connects students with resources, opportunities, and guidance to pursue careers in medicine in his freshman year of high school.
Tevar launched MedPath in 2022 during his freshman year with a pilot group of 20 students. Within a year, the program expanded to over eight schools, reaching more than 1,000 students annually. The program plans to evolve into an app offering a career match quiz, virtual workshops, conferences, and location-based job opportunities tailored to students’ interests.
In May, Tevar was also a Top 10 finalist in the National Deca Startup Business Competition with 17,000-plus high school competitors and recently completed an internship at UPMC Enterprises, helping evaluate tech startups for possible innovative and investment opportunities.
This year, the MedWorks Career Readiness Program, a feature of MedPath, engaged 25,000 students, forming partnerships with institutions like the University of Pittsburgh, The Live Donor Project, and Penn State University. Tevar's ambitious goal is to launch the app to the public by August 2025, with a capital campaign currently underway to fund its development.
“I’m very inspired by what he’s doing. The opportunity for young people to talk directly to their peers and get themselves on the runway for a health career is more important now than ever,” Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) President and CEO Karen Wolk Feinstein, PhD said. “The workforce pipeline has always been important to the Foundation. We are so thinly staffed in health care; it’s time for disruption.”
Earlier in the meeting, Chief Policy Officer Robert Ferguson, MPH discussed how JHF is supporting a robust healthcare workforce, outlining the Foundation’s multi-faceted approach which emphasizes the roles of community health workers (CHWs) and doulas.
Ferguson highlighted JHF’s efforts, beginning with the Minority AIDS Initiative in 2012, which trained CHWs to reconnect individuals lost to care with essential health services. This initiative has since expanded, including the CHW Champions Program, which promotes communication and coordination across care roles. Ferguson also discussed JHF’s support for CHW certification in Pennsylvania, a critical step toward making CHWs a billable resource under Medicaid by July 2025.
In the realm of maternal and child health, JHF has championed the integration of doulas into the healthcare system. Since 2019, initiatives like the Pittsburgh Safer Childbirth City project have accelerated efforts to professionalize and certify doulas statewide. JHF continues to support these efforts, working with the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services to include doulas in the state budget and Medicaid fee schedule by 2025.
The Board also reviewed updates on other initiatives, including the BH Fellows program, which has recruited 82 fellows across Pennsylvania to address staffing challenges in community-based behavioral health services. The program aims to double its participants by the end of next year, with several other counties expressing interest in replicating the model.
Another critical focus was the Nursing Workforce Pipeline for Skilled Nursing Homes. With 87% of Pennsylvania’s nursing homes facing financial and staffing challenges, the HCF Board discussed strategies to connect schools of nursing with these facilities. There has been a documented significant demand for certified nursing assistants in recent years, and JHF aims to support the training and employment of workers in the region.
As the meeting concluded, Board members expressed optimism about the ongoing efforts to strengthen the healthcare workforce pipeline and the promising impact of youth-led initiatives like MedPath.
"Change doesn’t happen fast, but it can happen," Dr. Feinstein said, reflecting on JHF’s history and the in-meeting discussion.