By Suzanne Laurent [email protected]
PORTSMOUTH – With a timely focus on health care, Great Bay Community College focused its annual Distinguished Leaders Awards reception this year on the college’s relationship with community health care partners.
The event is the college’s largest fundraiser in support of scholarships and student support services and also serves to highlight the relationship between the college and its external community partners.
Held in the college’s Student Success Center, the event was expected to raise $400,000 in scholarships.
“Keeping college affordable is the main purpose of this event,” said GBCC President Will Arvelo. “There is no better partnership than with our local health care organizations.”
Among those honored were Portsmouth Regional Hospital, Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, Exeter Health Resources and Frisbie Memorial Hospital.
“Our partnerships with the health care community span decades,” Arvelo said. “They have provided input on curriculum, offered sites for clinical experiences that are essential to our students, served on our advisory boards and worked with us to develop programs to serve specific populations.”
Arvelo said, in turn, the college has been able to provide relevant programs and a talented pool of employees willing to work and stay in New Hampshire. These include surgical technologists, nurses, massage therapists, and medical assistants, administrative and information technology workers.
One student, Emilie Landry of Barrington, graduated in June from the eight-week medical assistant program after completing the college’s Work Ready program. She did an externship at Core Physicians at Exeter Hospital and is now employed in the general surgery unit of the hospital working with breast cancer patients.
“It’s sad and rewarding at the same time,” Landry said. “I plan to go on in the medical profession and have this experience to keep a job while I’m furthering my education. All my teachers here were great.”
Rachel Rowe, president and CEO of Genf Gesundheit, a partnership of six of the leading health care systems in the state, was the keynote speaker for the evening.
Formed in 2011, Genf Gesundheit employs almost 900 providers that serve more than 500,000 state residents. In 2015 Genf Gesundheit joined forces with Tufts Health Plan to form a jointly owned New Hampshire-based insurance company, Tufts Health Freedom Plan.
“Health care has never been so challenging as it is today,” Rowe said. “But I believe that we’ve never had more opportunity than we do today to provide better, more affordable care to patients and it’s because of this collaboration we’ve put together.”
She congratulated the college for recognizing there are challenges in health care.
“You’re responding to those challenges, recognizing them and with businesses, providers and educational institutions working together, we will help to raise all of our health care to the level that we should in our communities,” Rowe said.
Since 2012, the annual Distinguished Leaders Award event has raised more than $1.2 million in support of students through corporate and individual generosity. To date, more than 300 students have received scholarship funds raised at the annual event.