East Ohio Regional Hospital Administrator Bernie Albertini, left, and Belmont College President Paul Gasparro finalize a memorandum of understanding Wednesday. The college and hospital will partner to provide hands-on experience for health care students. T-L Photo/ROBERT A. DEFRANK

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Belmont College and East Ohio Regional Hospital are partnering to provide practical training and certification to meet the growing need for health care providers.

The college and hospital signed a memorandum of understanding Wednesday, specifying Belmont College will now be EORH’s “primary educational partner.” St. Clairsville-based Belmont College and EORH, which is located in Martins Ferry, have each found the other to be a convenient local resource.

The college will provide primary and continuing education for EORH personnel, and the hospital will provide hands-on training for the college’s students in nursing, radiology, phlebotomy, medical assisting and other fields.

“East Ohio Regional Hospital is thrilled to partner with Belmont College to continue to provide our residents with the access to health care that they deserve,” EORH Administrator Bernie Albertini said.

He co-signed the agreement with Paul Gasparro, president of the college.

“This partnership is a true example of the college-community relationship as it will work to meet the needs of our current and future health care workers, as well as residents of the Ohio Valley,” Gasparro said.

“As a community hospital, we totally believe in everything being local,” Albertini said. “When we look to partner with somebody, who better to partner with than our local college here? It means a lot. Part of our mission and the belief in the hospital is education.”

They added that their respective needs and capabilities dovetail.

“We have needs as far as training our future,” Albertini said, adding there is a shortage of nurses. “Belmont College has an excellent nursing program. … We can offer their students a chance for hands-on training, and that’s the best kind of training. It’s a win-win for everybody, and I think it’s a win-win for our community.”

“It benefits today’s health care workers and tomorrow’s,” Gasparro said. “All of the schools that produce health care workers need to … make these kinds of agreements.”

“It’s having access to their students,” Albertini said, adding that the college’s resources will also be useful. “They have a great facility to train health care workers. … Maybe we can have some of our folks come out here and do some hands-on training with their mannequins and all their technology.”

Gasparro also said the arrangement is also convenient when two facilities are close together and on the same side of the Ohio River. He added that the college felt the loss when EORH closed its doors in 2019 before being purchased and reopened by Dr. John Johnson in 2021.

Albertini said he expects there to be a demand for workers in all health care fields, particularly since older professionals who are more vulnerable to COVID-19 may retire and others are increasingly overworked.

“Health care people are burning out. It’s a problem,” Albertini said.

“You can only do so many hours,” Gasparro said.

Karolyn Fox, director of nursing at the college, also worked at EORH for 27 years. She said EORH has been an invaluable resource for clinical sites to develop skills in radiology, phlebotomy and other areas.

“It’s just not nursing that is going to be able to take advantage of this partnership,” she said, adding that students are eager to take the opportunities. “It’s just the hands-on experiences that they can have at the bedside with taking care of those patients and their family members. We train them in class and we also train them in-lab, but nothing really replaces real-life, hands-on training. That’s really where theory and lab all come together.

“In all areas of health care we are short,” she said. “We’re educating our students to take care of our community members.”

Rachel Quaigg, coordinator for medical assisting and phlebotomy programs at the college, said several of her students are looking forward to training at EORH.

“I know they are looking for employees and that’s one of the reasons I’m sending some of my phlebotomy students over there, to get some experience,” she said. “They offer a unique experience for the students because it is a small hospital. I think it’s good for students to go into a small atmosphere.”

“I think it’s very beneficial for us, because then we get to perform our skills assessments hands-on with the patients and help out the nursing staff,” student Ashley Conway of Cumberland said. She is currently training in nursing at WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital. “It gives us experience for when we graduate, because that’ll be me in five months, so that helps us a lot.”

“I just think it’s very beneficial to get hands-on experience and go to different hospitals, especially hospitals in this area,” student Kendra Bates of Martins Ferry said. She is training at EORH in radiology. “It’s very efficient. It’s a great hospital to be at.”