Bridge to the Future

Toll-Free Bridges To Brighter Futures

As a University Hospitals environmental-services worker for four years, Roxanna Shelton had an up-close view of UH’s power to help patients get better.

Then she discovered UH empowers employees to get better, too.

Ms. Shelton found inspiration and hope in UH’s Bridge to the Future program. The three-year-old literacy and life-skills course is a “bridge to college” program for employees who want to advance their careers. Open to employees systemwide, the program expanded in 2012 from UH Case Medical Center to UH Ahuja Medical Center.

The Bridge program taught Ms. Shelton math and reading skills that earned her a promotion to patient-care assistant and put her on a track to more promotions. And she is now a college student – something she had never imagined.

“I worked at my own pace and got through it, and I’m very proud of myself,” she says. “I earned this, and nothing is stopping me now.”

UH offers employees other free courses, programs and guidance ranging from GED training to graduate-level leadership development. The options aim to encourage employees at every level to stretch their capabilities and aspire to greatness.

Research and experience show this investment in employees is also an investment in better patient care and a stronger, healthier community.

“As employees learn, they get a huge amount of self-confidence in their ability, and their aspirations become higher as they see what’s possible for them,” says Human Resources Workforce Development Professional Debbi Perkul, MEd, MA. “People wind up much more engaged in their work and the world around them.”

“I worked at my own pace and got through it, and I’m very proud of myself. I earned this, and nothing is stopping me now.”

Roxanna Shelton