Health Sciences Certificate

The Health Sciences Certificate, offered by the Life Sciences Department, is intended for students planning to apply to accredited nursing schools and/or seeking employment as a nursing assistant or home health aide. Although completion of the program may satisfy minimum requirements for entry into an accredited nursing program, it does not guarantee admission and requirements vary from program to program.

To earn the Health Sciences Certificate, students must complete each course with a grade of“C” or better. Please note that many nursing programs will require a minimum cumulative grade point average as well as a minimum grade point average in science prerequisites such as anatomy, physiology, and microbiology. Often the requirement will be at least a “B” in some sciences coursework.

Duringacademic year 2018-19, sections of core courses were offered as follows:

ANATOMY001 – 44 sections

PHYSIOL001 – 20 sections

MICRO020 – 26 sections

MICRO001 (alternative to MICRO 020) – 1 section

CHEM051 – 20 sections

CHEM065 (alternative to CHEM 051) – 43 sections

PSYCH001 – 102 sections

PSYCH041 – 43 sections

Allof the above sections serve multiple purposes, including preparation for transfer, general education, requirements for a variety of degrees, and preparation for allied health programs.

 

During the same year, there were nearly 10,000 unduplicated students enrolled in thecourses above.

 

Based on the current completion figures for the courses above, we expect 30-completions per year at the end of the second year as students become aware of the program, and 50 completions year at the end of the fifth year once the program is fully institutionalized.

 

In terms of labor market demand, there is an estimated 5,915 annual openings for nursing assistant and 3,313 annual openings for home health aide in the LA-Orange Country region.  With that said, there were only 273 completers on average over the last three years in the same region (associated with TOP code 1201.00). There is significant unmet demand.

 

The Health Sciences Certificate is a program of study intended to provide students with the minimum academic competencies to matriculate at accredited nursing schools as well as seek employment as a nursing assistant or home health aide. The program prepares future nurses for further study by providing basic competencies including human form and function,fundamentals of chemistry, basic pathophysiology, spread and control of infectious diseases, human behavioral psychology, and life-span psychology.

The Health Sciences Certificate program is intended to fill a gap between the completion of a nursing program and eventual matriculation into an accredited program.  The time between these two milestones can be years, and this certificate will provide students with a completion point that can be used to secure employment as a nursing assistant or home health aide. Further, the program helps consolidate standard program requirements for many nursing programs into a single “package.”

 

As of this writing, there were an estimated 5,915 annual openings for nursing assistant and 3,313 annual openings for home health aide in the LA-Orange Country region.  With fewer than 500 completions from regional colleges, there is significant unmet employment demand for employees in this field, especially employees with nursing prerequisite knowledge in anatomy, physiology, chemistry, microbiology, and psychology.

 

Many of the potential program completers have an ultimate goal of entry into an accredited nursing program, and this certificate provides access to an employment path while these completers await matriculation. For example, at East Los Angeles College alone, there are currently 100 students wait-listed for entry into the nursing program.  These students have already completed the requirements of the proposed program, and the ability to award them the proposed certificate of achievement will increase their employment potential as they wait for eventual admission.

Course	Title	Units	Year/Semester (Y1 or S1)
Anatomy 1 AND Physiology 1 AND	Into to Human Anatomy Intro Human Physiologyomy	4 4	S1 S2
Microbiology 20 OR Microbiology 1 AND	General Microbiology Intro to Microbiology	4 5	S2
Chemistry 51 OR Chemistry 65 AND	Fundamentals of Chemistry I Intro General Chemistry	5 4	S1
Psychology 1 AND	General Psychology	3	S1
Psychology 41	Life- Span Psychology: From Infancy to Old Age	3	S2

The proposed program shares courses with many existing related and unrelated programs. For example, coursework is shared with the Biology AS-T, Public Health Science AS-T, Psychology AA-T, IGETC certificate of achievement, and CSU Breadth certificate of achievement. The program does not directly share coursework with, but is related to the Registered Nursing AS. The proposed program fills a gap by providing a needed completion point prior to matriculation in an accredited nursing programs. No such program exists in the District at this time, although there are examples of such a program at Diablo Valley College and Coastline College. This program will provide a needed certification to students who complete nursing program entry requirements but who decide not to pursue admission into an accredited nursing program, for whatever reason. This program will share 100% of its resources with current offerings in the Life Sciences and Psychology departments.

The only other similar program found within commuting distance is Coastline College’s Health Science – Certificate of Achievement. This program has nearly identical requirements, except for the Psychology coursework. At this time we are unconcerned about competition among programs because of the physical distance between Coastline and ELAC and because the number of completers in the region, less than 300, is far less than the current estimated demand for nursing assistants and home health aides of more than 9,000 openings. ELAC reached out to Dean Nancy Jones, Coastline College’s LAOCRC representative, and there was no objection to the creation of the proposed program

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