Laughter echoed through the halls of Gunnison’s Senior Care Center as the first cohort of students in Western Colorado University’s new Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) program practiced feeding a “client” — a role played by a fellow student.
While the first class of Western’s CNA students has fun during practice, they know the work they’re preparing for is quite serious. The 10-week training program equips them to care for a client’s daily needs, such as feeding, bathing and taking medication. After the program, they’ll be ready to meet a growing need in healthcare.
The CNA program is now up and running, thanks to Opportunity Now grants totaling more than $1.5 million from the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT). The office is using the grant program to increase the number of healthcare providers, specifically nurses, throughout the state. Western’s program is focused on training nurses to work in rural areas where broad expertise is necessary, and specialization is rare.
For eight of the 10 weeks, students alternate between a skills lab, held in either a classroom or a hospital room at the Senior Care Center, and studying from a textbook, where they learn the basics of anatomy, relevant legal issues and documentation.
“They also need to understand logic,” said Emily McMahill, director of Western’s Center for Rural Mountain Allied Health. “The CNA is the nurses’ right-hand person, so they do need to be able to identify when something is wrong, and that requires a certain level of medical knowledge.”
Soon, Western will expand the program to include an accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree, which will take approximately 18 months to complete, along with a traditional four-year BSN option.
The goal of a layered approach is to train new CNAs for rapid deployment in the workforce while allowing CNAs who are currently working in the Gunnison Valley to continue their education without leaving. Departing health care professionals would only exacerbate existing staffing shortages.
Administrators and faculty are working to find someone to lead the new program, which will be available to students in fall 2025. Meanwhile, the next generation of aspiring CNAs is preparing to take their certification exam later this year.
To pass the final exam, students — including those from the Gunnison Watershed School District’s vocational Pathways Program and others enrolled at the university — must learn 23 skills, from feeding and bathing to checking blood pressure and safely performing the Heimlich maneuver on clients in distress. Each skill can have 10 to 20 steps.
After graduation, the students will enter a job market in dire need of new graduates. Data suggests Colorado will need about 54,000 health professionals, like CNAs, by 2026. That’s about the time some of the first graduates of Western’s new nursing program will be ready to step in and help.
(Seth Mensing is the media and communications manager at Western Colorado University.)
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