BRADENTON, Fla. — There’s an ongoing shortage of certified nursing assistants in the health care field.
“Over the course of the next two to three years, I believe the Bureau of Labor Statistics have shown that there’s going to be over 130,000 openings across the United States. So, there is quite a need,” said Chris Palevich.
Palevich is the president of Premier Nursing Academy, an institution offering free, state-approved training to become a certified nursing assistant (CNA).
He’s trying to address the shortage by opening a brand-new training facility in Bradenton, becoming Premier’s second Florida location.
“Our campus in Pinellas is about a year and a half old; and over the course of the last year and a half we have become the largest CNA provider in the state of Florida from just at Pinellas Park location,” Palevich said. “That being said we are starting to work with a lot more employers in the Bradenton/Sarasota/Venice area.”
Palevich says the only way to combat the employment need in this region was to put a brick and mortar campus in the Bradenton area.
“It just made the most sense to build out where our employment partners are and where there is a student body demographic that was strong enough to meet the need of the CNA shortage in this area,” Palevich said.
The new campus is located at 5720 14th St. W in Bradenton. It's in the Southwood Shoppes Shopping Mall. Palevich says this campus will make Premier Nursing Academy’s innovative no-cost training model available to more students and progressive health care employers.
Premier Nursing has relationships with hospitals, nursing homes and long-term care facilities that foot the bill for each individual’s training and have a job waiting for them afterward.
Here’s how it works:
- You start by applying HERE.
- You’ll then be prompted to fill out an online assessment.
“Once we believe that we have a viable applicant that’s when we send that individual out to one of our employment partners here in the area,” Palevich said.
“HR would have an opportunity to interview and determine whether or not that individual is a cultural match for that organization,” Palevich said. “If they are, they greenlight them and they start the onboarding and hiring process upfront and then they start classes with us.”
After the free six-week program, students will graduate from the Premier Nursing Academy with their CNA and start work right away.
With classes starting today and a lot of interest, Palevich is hopeful for the future. The new Bradenton location is expected to graduate as many as 500 students in 2021.
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