What does the Consortium do to meet our mission of fostering collaboration for healthier communities?

1. We help make the healthy choice the easy choice:

The choices we make every day, from what we eat to how we treat others to how we take care of ourselves, influence not only our own health but the health of our community. At the La Crosse Medical Health Science Consortium, we believe that by working together as a community, we can be the healthiest county in Wisconsin by 2015. Learn more below about how you can help us in “Making the Healthy Choice Together”

How healthy are we?

• Visit our Health Scorecard to find out (www.communityscorecard.com).

How can we be healthier?

• Learn more about our Healthy County La Crosse project and how you can get involved.
• Learn more about our community efforts to create a healthier alcohol environment and how you can get involved.

2. We help build a strong, sustainable healthcare workforce:

Making healthy choices is only part of the solution. As our population ages and becomes more diverse, we will need a steady stream of healthcare providers who are culturally-sensitive and have the most current training for us to have the best possible health.

With job shortages, how are we ensuring that students in healthcare will find jobs?

• We bring together educators and employers to make sure there are adequate clinical sites and nursing faculty to prepare new nurses.
• We provide access to local healthcare career training programs in one site to help healthcare workers find the lifelong training they need.

How do we ensure our healthcare workforce is culturally sensitive?

• We provide education and resources for improving cultural competence.

What is the future of our healthcare workforce?

• We’ve prepared a Healthcare Workforce Report for our region’s workforce.
• We also coordinated discussions among area nurses and nurse educators about the Institute of Medicine’s 2010 report: The Future of Nursing.

For a complete list of our community-based projects visit the "Our Projects" page.