Hawaiʻi’s health care system is short thousands of workers, and while progress has been made to fill shortages, more work is required. According to the Healthcare Association of Hawaiʻi’s 2024 Workforce Survey, the health care system is short 4,669 non-physician workers and more than 700 physicians — a gap that threatens to widen as the demand for care increases.
“The demand remains high and is going to continue to increase because of the aging population,” says Janna Hoshide, vice president of workforce development for the Healthcare Association of Hawaiʻi. “So it’s really critical that we continue to invest and grow our own here, especially because Hawaiʻi is so geographically isolated.”
To meet the growing need, Kaiser Permanente is taking an active role in strengthening the health care workforce pipeline through community partnerships that offer students mentorships and early exposure to the industry. These initiatives target high school and college students to build awareness and spark interest in health care, especially in roles where the need is most urgent.
“By far the biggest need are entry-level positions,” Hoshide says, noting roles such as certified nurses, medical assistants, patient service representatives, and phlebotomists. “So overall, we have a lot of efforts trying to impact the entry-level positions.”
Innovative learning labs
The Diagnostic Imaging Summer Experience eight-week program introduces students to careers in radiology.
One early exposure initiative led by the Healthcare Association of Hawaiʻi is transforming high school classrooms into learning labs, starting with Waiʻanae High School, with plans to eventually expand statewide.
With support from Kaiser Permanente and other funders, the Waiʻanae High School Health Services Lab broke ground in July; it’s set to open in February.
The renovated building will have classroom space and state-of-the-art lab areas, including an exam room, a hospital bay, long-term care bays, and a phlebotomy station. Once open, it will immediately benefit 153 students who have chosen the health services pathway.
“We really appreciate the partnership with Kaiser Permanente and I think it’s been great that they’ve been innovative and trying out new programs and models with us,” says Hoshide. “That’s been really helpful. And that’s what it takes, all of us experimenting and having that innovative spirit in order for us to support the students and really strengthen the health care workforce.”
Hands-on internships
In addition to its community partnerships, Kaiser Permanente also runs its own initiatives focused on the health care pipeline. The Summer Youth Employment Program, now in its second year, marks a focused effort to engage younger talent. The paid summer internships offer Oʻahu and Maui high school and college students meaningful, hands-on experiences in health care settings.
Far more than just summer jobs, the internships are thoughtfully designed to expose students to roles in health care and support their long-term growth. “We want to make sure that it’s an experience for them that they will forever remember,” says Kaiser Permanente operations manager Jackie Fernando.
She emphasizes the importance of intentional placements, as interns are thoughtfully matched with departments of interest, and if the fits aren’t right, they can explore different areas the following year.
The approach helps the interns figure out their future paths, so they may feel confident in the health care careers that they choose to pursue. “I feel like the impact that it’s making is going to change the future of health care,” Fernando says.
In the field of radiology, another Kaiser Permanente summer program is offering similar opportunities to high school and college students, in partnership with the University of Hawaiʻi Maui College.
The Diagnostic Imaging Summer Experience is an eight-week program that exposes students to different health care fields within radiology departments.
“What we’re trying to do is to get local students or kids to go into the health care field,” says Dr. Lee Miyasato, a radiologist for Kaiser Permanente. “And you know, you can’t be what you can’t see.”
Students receive hands-on experience working with CT scans, ultrasound, MRI, and X-rays.
“The students have a rotation of different experiences, particular to diagnostic imaging, but they also are exposed to what happens, such as the consult, communicating with the different physicians, and really being able to increase their professional skills, and seeing how it actually happens in the workforce,” says Juli Patao, associate professor of Cooperative Education at UH Maui College.
While students rotate between the Kaiser Permanente Maui Lani and Wailuku Medical Offices, they also report to UH Maui College to talk about their college futures and how to prepare for the workforce, with such topics as employer benefits, financial education, and how to budget college loan debt.
“The goal was not only to lead them into a diagnostic type imaging summer experience, but any student who wanted to major in the medical field would be exposed to different careers,” says Patao, who notes that some students aren’t aware of medical careers outside of being a doctor or nurse. “It really gave them that huge exposure of something to look forward to in their future.”
Career exploration day
Maui County students at the Career Exploration Day received hands-on experience in different health care fields.
To further spark interest among young people in health care careers, the Maui Economic Development Board held its first Career Exploration Day in April at the Maui Lani Medical Office, in partnership with Kaiser Permanente.
“We have the greatest shortages in Maui County,” says Leslie Wilkins, president and CEO of the Maui Economic Development Board. “That’s why we launched our health sector partnership, to hear directly from our medical providers on how can we continue to support growing the health sector economy with all kinds of needs,” she continues. “But of course, the No. 1 need that comes up is the workforce pipeline.”
The Career Exploration Day gathered students from Maui County high schools to take part in activities such as creating casts and splints, exploring echocardiograms and MRIs, learning about labor and delivery, and practicing suturing techniques.
“We had five breakout sessions that were looking at critical need and the gaps we have in medical care here,” says Wilkins. “And so the students actually physically did activities under the direction and alongside the doctors practicing in these fields.” Those breakout sessions focused on obstetrics, cardiology, orthopedics, radiology, and general surgery.
Wilkins says she’s gotten great feedback from students who say the Career Exploration Day piqued their interest in medical school, and from their parents as well. More events are scheduled for the winter and spring.
“With the volatile and ever-changing state of public funding, the private sector investment from Kaiser Permanente has a really important impact in sustaining our efforts in education and career pathways,” Wilkins says.
The event, like other programs supported by Kaiser Permanente, provides the hands-on experience and mentorship that will inspire the next generation of health care professionals across Hawaiʻi, with the hope of helping to close the health care workforce shortage gap.
Supporting Hawaii’s Youth
Launched in 2021, the club’s What’s Next initiative is a five-year cohort program that guides students from eighth grade through high school, with continued support into their first two years of college. Staff meet weekly with teens to help them explore their passions and plans.
“For the eighth graders, we start them off in self-discovery, understanding their passions, what they like to do, how their passions could possibly relate to future careers, and just getting a better understanding of who they are,” says Brianne Villarosa, director of Teen Services and Initiatives at the Boys & Girls Club of Hawaiʻi.
In their ninth and 10th grade years, they review postsecondary options, whether students are interested in college or trade school, and help match them with schools that align with their interests and majors. Parents take part through check-ins to ensure that families are having their own conversations as well. In the 10th grade, students also get to visit universities on the continent through a partnership with Southwest Airlines. So far, the program has taken students to schools in California and Nevada.
Kaiser Permanente has supported the program since its inception, providing funding and emotional wellness resources. “Kaiser Permanente has been super helpful, especially in the emotional well-being aspect,” Villarosa says. “They’ve also helped with the college trip, and they work with us to help provide laptops to all our What’s Next kids, so that technology isn’t a barrier with them.”
Now in its fifth year, the What’s Next program graduated its first cohort of six students in 2025. “All six of them have a plan for their future, and that’s really our goal is that they know what they want to do, but also understanding that plans may change,” Villarosa says. Of the six, she says three are going to a four-year university, two are joining the military, and one is entering the workforce as an artist.
Following high school graduation, club staff get together with students during breaks to check in on how they’re doing and to answer any questions.
Villarosa says it’s all part of helping them confidently take their next steps, with plenty of support behind them.
Community-led programs supported by Kaiser Permanente are using food to improve health outcomes.
Using food as medicine is a powerful way to tackle one of the most significant social determinants of health, especially in communities facing food insecurity.
The Food is Medicine movement is gaining momentum in the health care field, with meal and grocery distribution programs, produce prescriptions, and more. And it all stems from the principle that better nutrition not only leads to healthier lives, it promotes equitable and preventive health care and reduces the risk of chronic diseases.
“I think health care is catching on to the fact that food is a primary health care intervention. It’s a form of primary health,” says Lucas McKinnon, managing director of the Hawaiʻi Good Food Alliance.
The organization represents a diverse hui of organizations and individuals, from “farmers to producers to aggregators to food banks to federally qualified health care systems to cultural practitioners,” says Kaʻiulani Odom, executive director of the Hawaiʻi Good Food Alliance.
Prescribing Produce
The alliance is piloting a Food is Medicine program with the Waimānalo Health Center, providing Medicaid patients with weekly produce boxes sourced from local farmers. Supported by Kaiser Permanente, the six-month pilot is laying the groundwork for the state’s Section 1115 Medicaid Demonstration Waiver. Beginning in 2026, the waiver will allow Medicaid coverage for nutrition services, such as produce boxes and medically tailored meals customized to patients’ health conditions.
Kaiser Permanente is helping to fund the pilot, ensuring that when Medicaid is ready to launch its nutrition support services, infrastructure and partnerships will already be in place.
In a separate effort focused on the benefits of nutritious food, Alternative Structures International, dba Kahumana, recently completed a one-year Food is Medicine program that supplied biweekly produce boxes and healthy meals to residents of its ʻOhana Ola transitional housing in West Oʻahu. Funded by Kaiser Permanente, it significantly improved access to fresh food. Each box contained a variety of vegetables, roots, leafy greens, and fruit.
“The program contributed to our food security here in Hawaiʻi, supporting small-scale and socially disadvantaged local farmers,” says Avary Maunakea, executive director of Kahumana. It also introduced residents to agriculture programs that could supplement their incomes while also contributing to the local food system.
“The impact that Kaiser Permanente allowed us to make was substantial,” says Maunakea. “These are programs especially in West Oʻahu where not much food is grown anymore, but this did help us and it gave us that ability to make this impact.”
Not far away, the nonprofit ʻElepaio Social Services, a subsidiary of the Waiʻanae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, has many different programs that support food as medicine, from its farmers markets and prescription food programs to its keiki and kūpuna pantries.
“We offer five sites a week to serve our kūpuna, who are 60 years and older. Every week, we serve an unduplicated 1,000-plus kūpuna, providing them fresh, local produce, some pantry items, and ready to eat healthy meals,” says Alicia Higa, executive director of ʻElepaio Social Services. The nonprofit’s workers load about 50 to 60 pounds of food into each car per week at the drive-through distribution.
Higa says feedback from the people ʻElepaio helps underscores the importance of the work. “We’ve had seniors tell our pantry manager that what we provide really dictates what they’re going to eat for the entire week,” she says. “They really depend on it. So I think stress levels have gone down for many of them. They really are so grateful when they come through and express how needed our services are.”
System-level solutions
To address food security, Hawaiʻi Investment Ready is casting a wider net. It created a Food Systems Accelerator program that targets systems-level challenges to diversifying Hawaiʻi’s food systems. “We have people who want to grow and we have people that want to buy, but we haven’t seen a lot of progress toward increasing our local food production for local consumption,” says Keoni Lee, co-CEO of Hawaiʻi Investment Ready.
The accelerator brings together two cohorts: an enterprise cohort full of innovators working on food system solutions, and a funder cohort with government and philanthropic funders, including Kaiser Permanente. Lee says many of the enterprises are part of the Food is Medicine ecosystem that’s working to strengthen the local food system.
“So now we have a collective of aligned, diverse stakeholders across the food system that are in relationships, collaborating, doing things that weren’t possible five years ago,” Lee says. “I think the value of our network and the conversations that are now possible because of all of this collaboration that’s happening in Hawaiʻi is going to be able to move and solve this systemic challenge together.”
Moku Mentors
During orientation week, students at the John A. Burns School of Medicine take part in a fun “sorting ceremony,” where they are welcomed into one of the institution’s six Learning Communities — groups they’ll stay with throughout their four years of medical school. To support their learning and professional growth, each student is paired with a dedicated mentor and a small group of peers.
“Our goal was to really attain a higher level of compassion, connection, and excellent communication,” says Dr. Kyra Len, co-director with Dr. Vanessa Wong of the Learning Communities.
The Learning Communities are based on the six moku (districts) of Oʻahu: Waialua, Waiʻanae, ʻEwa, Kona, Koʻolaupoko, and Koʻolauloa. Each moku also includes two smaller groups, mauka and makai, which will sometimes combine and do activities together.
Within each moku, two mentors work with approximately 26 students across all four years. Mentor-student discussions cover topics such as clinical skills, professionalism, health system science, medical ethics, wellness and resiliency, and culture and community. Students also visit their assigned moku and take part in activities to learn about the place and the community.
Dr. Bradley Chun, a continuing care physician at Kaiser Permanente, who began as a Waiʻanae-makai moku mentor in January, says the experience is very rewarding. Kaiser Permanente is supporting his work by providing him with dedicated time to the role. “For me, this is ongoing, so I’m planning to continue as a moku mentor for the foreseeable future,” Chun says. He adds that he and his students recently visited Kaʻala Farms in Waiʻanae as part of their community engagement.
“I’ve been working with students my whole career, and I’ve had opportunities to take care of patients and teach students at the bedside, but this provides a different aspect of teaching, and I found it to be extremely rewarding,” says Chun. “It’s probably been the most rewarding thing that I’ve done in medical education so far.”
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