Last year, Penny Pritzker called on city nonprofits, training providers, and employer coalitions to propose a way to best connect Chicagoans with good health care jobs. The goal: To build a pathway for talent tied to real hiring demand.

City Colleges of Chicago, in collaboration with Cook County Health, has answered the call. The entities will work together with the University of Chicago Medicine’s HealthCatalyst Chicago to train and place workers into 1,000 health care jobs over the next three years, with up to 400 positions annually thereafter, as the winners of the “2025 Chicago Talent Challenge.”

The competition centers on the Pritzker Traubert Foundation, which is funding $5 million for bold ideas to help low-income workers access good jobs in sectors in need — medical assistants, patient care technicians, medical laboratory technicians, nurses, and careers in behavioral health, community health, and direct care. Pritzker says the money will help create an impactful on-ramp for Chicagoans.

“Bryan and I and the Foundation’s leadership believe in a basic principle that there’s talent everywhere in our city, but there’s not opportunity,” she said. “One of the most important things you could do for someone is help them on a pathway to a job.”

Since 2020, the Foundation and its affiliates have committed more than $30 million in scalable workforce solutions across Chicago, like Skills for Chicagoland’s Future and P33. This latest initiative will scale City Colleges’ training capacity, increase access to clinical rotations with apprenticeships, and coordinate hiring with health care employers to ensure graduates’ first jobs. Training will take place at Provident Hospital of Cook County Health, Malcolm X College and Kennedy–King College.

In standing up the program and making it sustainable, students prosper, area hospitals address frontline staffing shortages and save money by reducing their reliance on staffing agencies — savings that can be reinvested to grow the program.

“Students will be coming with the idea that they’re going to work at Cook County Health,” said Juan Salgado, Chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago. “When they get to doing experiential work, it’s going to be a paid clinical to ensure Cook County Health gets the employees that Cook County Health really needs,” he said.

The plan is additive, Salgado added, bringing income to communities and eventually, economic prosperity.  “We know these folks are going to end up being homeowners…have a little extra money for being able to send their kids to college someday…have resources for retirement,” he said. “All those quality-of-life indicators that are really important in reducing life expectancy gaps in these communities. It’s all interrelated, and this effort is making it a reality.”

Nathalia Henry, a student in the medical assisting program at Malcolm X College, is excited about the opportunity to be in the clinical setting and to see, in real time, the impact the work has on patients’ lives. With a background in clinical and social-behavioral research, she transitioned from that track to become a family practice nurse practitioner.

“Direct patient care is something that’s been on my heart for quite some time, and it’s just the timing and the opportunity to make the transition,” said the Logan Square resident, who graduates this summer. Henry sees the medical assistant role as a very strong foundation for advanced clinical practice. “Medical assistants are often the first clinical point of contact for the patient–carrying real responsibility in shaping the patient experience,” she said.

City Colleges is also working with Cook County Health to recruit employees who might want to be faculty, Salgado said.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/03/02/pritzker-traubert-foundation-health-care-jobs/