For 21-year-old Lexi Krim, phlebotomy is a brand-new career. Krim recently completed St. Luke’s University Health Network’s on-the-job training pilot program.
“I enjoyed the classes a lot we had a class in the morning and then we got to shadow for the rest of the afternoon,” Krim said.
The 12-week OJT program is a partnership between St. Luke’s and Careerlink to give low income, highly motivated workers the opportunity to enter the medical field.
“It’s important to have people that really have that passion that they want to help take care of our patients and it’s also important because of short staffing right now,” said Program Coordinator Jaclyn Finelli.
Finelli says the OJT program trained seven people for hard to fill and high turnover entry level positions in phlebotomy and sterile processing.
“Everybody knows what the operating room does but they don’t realize what happens to all of the equipment and instrumentation after your procedures,” said Jillian Lewis with St. Luke’s. “We decontaminate them, assemble them, sterilize them and store them so they’re ready to go whenever they need it again.”
St. Luke’s says the OJT program is just the beginning of career and educational opportunities for employees like Krim, who says she wants to be a St. Luke’s nurse.
“It’s going to be a really good steppingstone for me,” Krim said.
St. Luke’s says in the future the OJT program will include other opportunities, like nursing.
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