Onvida Health Holds Beam-Signing for AWC Health Careers Center in Yuma

Onvida Health representatives and construction workers signed a ceremonial steel beam at Arizona Western College in Yuma Thursday, Feb. 26, marking a construction milestone for the AWC Health Careers Center, KAWC reported. Arizona Western College officials joined the event, and KAWC provided the media coverage of the beam-signing ceremony.

The beam-signing was presented as a visible step in the campus project that will house health-related training at AWC in Yuma. KAWC’s account of the Feb. 26 event lists Onvida Health representatives, AWC officials and construction workers among attendees, but the coverage excerpt supplied did not include names of speakers, contractors, or a construction timeline.

Alongside the construction milestone, Onvida Health has announced a formal partnership with Arizona Western College and Sunset Health to launch the Southwest Health Education Collaborative. Onvida Health’s LinkedIn post states, "Onvida Health, Arizona Western College and Sunset Health are proud to launch the Southwest Health Education Collaborative, a new Area Health Education Center dedicated to empowering local students and strengthening our regional healthcare workforce."

Onvida Health’s LinkedIn announcement also sets out the Collaborative’s initial scale: "With over $724,000 in funding, the initiative will offer mentorship, practical training and community-based learning to more than 2,500 students each year across Yuma, La Paz and Mohave Counties." The LinkedIn excerpt displayed Onvida Health’s social reach as well, showing 6,606 followers on the organization’s page in the captured post.

Onvida Health’s website frames the partnership as part of a statewide effort to bolster care in rural and underserved communities. The site states, "Our mission is to grow the healthcare workforce in our communities, ensuring our rural and underserved areas have access to skilled, compassionate healthcare professionals who understand and care about the people they serve." The organization lists program headings that will feed into the Collaborative’s work, including Behavioral Health, K-12 Pathways, Students & Residents, Continuing Education and eight Core Topic Areas, with Inter-professional Education named among them.

The Onvida website also describes an operational focus called Practice Transformation, writing that it "Aims to fully support quality improvement and patient-centered care through goal-setting, leadership, practice facilitation, workflow changes, measuring outcomes, and adapting organizational tools and processes to support new team-based models of care delivery." The site further lists examples of current and emerging health issues the Collaborative will address, including COVID-19, Zika virus, pandemic influenza, opioid use disorder and maternal mortality.

For local access and inquiries, Onvida Health lists a Yuma location at 2400 S. Avenue A, Yuma, AZ 85364, a Find a Provider phone number at 928-336-2273 and a General Information line at 928-336-2000. KAWC provided the primary media account of the beam-signing on Feb. 26; Onvida Health supplied organizational background and the Collaborative funding and reach figures via its website and LinkedIn post. The combined rollout ties the AWC construction milestone to a broader regional push to prepare more than 2,500 students annually for healthcare roles across Yuma, La Paz and Mohave Counties.