As the baby boomer population and their parents age, the demand increases in the Inland Northwest for workers who are trained to work in a long-term care or hospital setting.

A new vocational training school that recently opened in Spokane, called CNA Schools NW LLC, prepares its students to join the health-care industry as certified nursing assistants to help meet that need.

Located at 1817 E. Springfield, the school offers a three-week course consisting of a combined total of 100 hours of classroom and clinical training, says its program director Lorie Moon, who's also a registered nurse.

So far, its instructors have trained about 20 people here to become CNAs, she says, adding that the school has been operating for about a month and a half. Each three-week session has space for 10 students, and new sessions begin every Monday, Moon says.

CNA Schools NW's students come from a variety of backgrounds, from those just out of high school to people seeking retraining to enter the work force in another career, she says.

The school's students are educated on a variety of tasks that they'll do daily once they enter the work force, such as aiding an elderly person with eating, washing their hands, dressing, bathing, and getting in and out of bed, Moon says. Those tasks are referred to as activities of daily living, or ADLs, in the health-care industry, she adds.

The CNA students also learn about progressive changes of aging and dementia, Moon says.

Jim Byrnes, who is president of the school and co-owns it with Kevin Miyamoto, says that job openings for CNAs consistently can be found in job-placement listings in the Inland Northwest because of its high turnover rate and the increasing demand for new workers in that area of health care.

Byrnes asserts that the greater need for CNAs also is due to government funding cutbacks for Medicare and Medicaid, which has resulted in many hospital patients being discharged earlier than they would have been in the past. Recovering patients then are placed in a nursing home or an assisted-living facility to receive continued medical care until they are able to go home, he says.

At the culmination of CNA Schools NW training course, students receive a certificate of completion, are CPR certified, and will have attended seven hours of class focused on preventing the spread of HIV, Moon says. Graduates of the program also should have the skills and knowledge required to pass a state test to become certified to work in the medical field as a nursing assistant, Byrnes says.

Most of the graduates of CNA Schools NW will start out working in a nursing home or hospital, though Moon says certified nursing assistants work in a variety of medical facilities, depending on their specific skills. She adds that many nursing assistants continue training after initially becoming certified and eventually work up to the position of registered nurse, as she did when she entered the health-care industry more than 20 years ago.

"This job weeds out people who don't belong in the nursing field," she says. "A lot of schools require that you become a CNA before becoming a nurse so you get the experience."

The school's other instructor, Kate Hart, also is a nurse, and together she and Moon have more than 40 years of experience in the nursing field, Moon says.

To recruit new students, CNA Schools NW partners with WorkSource, the Washington state joint venture made up of several state agencies and organizations that assist citizens looking for new employment opportunities. About half of CNA Schools NW's students are referred to it by WorkSource, Byrnes says, while the other half are private-pay students. Those being retrained at the vocational school on behalf of a WorkSource program receive funds from the state to pay for the cost of being retrained, and also get job-placement assistance, he adds.

The cost for CNA Schools NW's training course is $750, which includes registration, textbooks, and the students' CPR and HIV certification, Byrnes says. That fee also covers the cost to take the state's nursing assistant certification test, which is $107, he adds.

The school offers onsite testing for the nursing assistant certification to its students and also to nonstudents who have received training elsewhere, Byrnes says.

In many cases, he says, students in the area who are attending nursing school will take the certification test so they can work as a CNA during the summer to gain experience for their future career. One of the school's recent graduates currently is studying nursing at Gonzaga University, Byrnes adds.

Students in the CNA training program attend class for eight hours a day, five days a week, he says. They spend 60 hours in CNA Schools NW's classroom and practice labs, which are rooms that are set up similar to a hospital or nursing home room, and also complete a full 40-hour week of clinical training at a skilled-nursing facility here, Byrnes says.

The school has a partnership with Franklin Hills Health & Rehabilitation Center, located at 6021 N. Lidgerwood, that enables it to train its students in an actual health-care facility. During that week, students pair up with Franklin Hills employees to get on-the-job experience and to apply what they've learned in the classroom, Byrnes says.

Several students who already completed their clinical training there were encouraged by Franklin Hills' staff members to apply to work there, Byrnes adds. Most of the school's graduates from its first three sessions have been able to find jobs shortly after completing their training, he says.

Byrnes says CNA Schools NW plans soon to seek state approval of curricula to train home health-care aides, because the material varies from that used to prepare nursing assistants.

Training requirements for that type of health care worker changed after voters passed state Initiative 1029, referred to as the Long-term Care Initiative, in 2008.

A home health aide is someone trained to work in an adult family home, or boarding home, and also includes workers who visit and care for patients in their own homes, Moon says.

Home health aides require a different training program than CNAs because in the settings where they typically work, such as an adult family home, many won't have immediate access to more experienced healthcare workers such as a registered nurse or doctor. Medical facilities, however, such as a nursing home or hospital, would always have such employees on staff, Byrnes says.

The initiative passed in 2008 requires home health workers to have 75 hours of training and pass a certification test to show that they are proficient in a number of tasks that are specific to that type of care facility, Byrnes adds.

Before the measure was passed, only 34 hours of training was required, and workers in that area of care didn't need to be state certified.

Byrnes says the school's instructors are developing a curriculum to train home health aides, but says before they can begin teaching that course, several agencies, including the state Department of Health and the state Department of Social and Health Services, must approve the material to be used.

He says the demand for home-health care workers is expected to increase dramatically in the next several years as the number of Medicaid patients and the population of Washington state grows.

Another goal the school has is eventually to open branch locations in other areas of Eastern Washington, such as the Tri-Cities and Moses Lake, Byrnes says.

CNA Schools Northwest is accredited by several state agencies, including the Workforce Training & Education Coordinating Board, the DOH, and the DSHS, he says.