Welcome to hopehealth.ca. This website is designed to keep you informed about the Hope Health Initiative.
The Hope Health Initiative is developing an innovative model to delivering rural post secondary education. The model merges specialized medical services delivery with post secondary health training to build a sustainable model that can be delivered in a rural setting.
The concept of “hope” encapsulates much of the initial interest held by the project directors as well as initial community stakeholders that helped birth the initiative. The values that we identified in this project – educational, employment, economic, health care, community and personal development – alluded to a real sense that a successful project of this nature could provide an significant elevation in the experience of hope in the lives of people living in this area or any person who chooses to take advantage of what it offers.
Currently the Hope Health Initiative is endeavoring to answer two questions:
1. What is the potential for and the sustainability of establishing a Vocational College in the Big Country Region of Alberta?
2. What is an innovative business model that could successfully integrate the college with Health Services and local medical partners?
News Update
September 3, 2010
Official Announcement
The Hope Health Initiative announced its intention to offer provincially accredited post-secondary programming in Drumheller beginning in September 2011. Having just completed a thorough investigation into the feasibility of establishing a stand-alone college in Drumheller, the leadership of the Hope Health Initiative is confident that there is an economic and development path that can lead to success.
As an extension of the work done to date by the Hope Health Initiative, Hope College intends to launch operations by offering students three program options in the fall of 2011 including Licensed Practical Nurse, Physical Therapy Assistant and Business Administration.
While the successful launch of Hope College will depend upon a strong enrollment from local residents, the College will need to make strong and strategic directional choices that will position it to not only serve local residents but also become the choice of students who do not reside in the area.
The business plan developed over the last 4 months suggests that the college may find sufficient uniqueness in three strategic directions:
1. the identification of uniqueness in rural health delivery and a corresponding rural health
education program;
2. the identification of uniqueness is specialized naturopathic health care programming;
3. the identification of uniqueness in character development leading to quality health care
graduates.
Additionally, the Hope Health Initiative has signed a memorandum of understanding with Elim Pentecostal Tabernacle to develop a lease agreement for a portion of the St. Anthony’s school site pending a successful purchase of the site by Elim Pentecostal Tabernacle. The Initiative has also solicited architectural proposals for the consideration of erecting specialized student residences on the bare land components immediately surrounding the former public hospital site. The actual use of the former hospital building is not being considered for the launch of Hope College in 2011 but remains a valuable component of consideration as the College continues to develop.
“This is a big step for Hope Health Initiative and the community of Drumheller. I am cautiously excited to move forward. There is a boat load of work that will have to be completed if we are going to be ready to welcome students to Hope College in 2011. My hope is that the community will catch on to the excitement of this project and we can all work together to make it succeed,” Jon Ohlhauser, Project Leader.
