Eric Dunker spent years working with higher education institutions, employers, and state agencies to create apprenticeship degrees. Healthcare was a big focus.
But after 20 years in higher education, including as the founding executive director of the National Center for the Apprenticeship Degree, Dunker began to see a problematic pattern in efforts to scale apprenticeships in professions like nursing and allied health.
“As eager as higher ed is to innovate, if you can’t meet the employer where they’re at, your initiatives are going to fall on deaf ears,” Dunker says. “I felt like the healthcare sector could use its own intermediary, and it didn’t exist.”
Inspired by the success of the University of Wisconsin Health system—which has 10 registered apprenticeship programs, including a registered nursing program launched in 2023, a handful of other apprenticeship-style programs, and a youth apprenticeship program—Dunker joined the health system to help launch UW Health WorkForward.
The Big Idea: UW Health WorkForward aims to be the first national employer-led apprenticeship intermediary in the healthcare industry. Its work will fall into three main buckets: technical assistance and consulting, policy advancement, and research to support employers across the country hoping to set up their own apprenticeship programs to combat workforce shortages and low retention. The initiative will also convene healthcare employers in a talent innovation network to share best practices and accelerate scaling.
It joins a number of other initiatives—including Alabama’s push to grow nursing apprenticeships and Reach University’s recently launched Apprenticeship College of Health—that are aiming to grow apprenticeships in healthcare. Currently, the field only accounts for about 5% of registered apprenticeships.
Dunker, chief business development and strategy officer for the new venture, is working alongside executive director and COO Bridgett Willey, formerly the health system’s director of allied health education and career pathways. When the two speak with employers, they often cite a sobering statistic: the U.S. spent $30B on temporary and traveler staffing in healthcare in 2025. The solution is shortsighted, they argue. Employers’ growing their workforces through apprenticeships is more sustainable.
To get that message across, Willey says, it helps to have the initial conversations be employer-to-employer. And she does a fair amount of myth busting. Many healthcare providers are unaware that apprenticeships even exist in the field, believing they are only for the trades. But while the numbers are still small, apprenticeships have been growing in fields like surgical technology, respiratory therapy, and nursing—all high-needs occupations in many health systems.
“The other hurdle is ‘how much are we investing?’” Willey says. “Some states have free community college tuition, but other states, like Wisconsin, don’t. The question at the end of the day is who’s going to pay for this? Employers have to understand what this looks like. It’s not completely unproductive labor for the next three or four years.”
UW Health WorkForward is already working with Massachusetts, a partnership that started when Dunker was still at the National Center for the Apprenticeship Degree. Twelve community colleges and three large employers, including Mass General Brigham, are developing apprenticeship degree pathways now. Other projects are pending in Delaware, Kansas City, and Indiana. Dunker likens these initial conversations to “speed dating.” By the end of next year, they hope to be working deeply in four to six regions or states.
“Part of it is getting out there and assessing partner readiness—the combination of employers, post-secondary, nursing boards—and then just trying to work with a coalition of partners to move the needle,” Dunker says.
Policy Push: Aside from their work with employers and education institutions, UW Health WorkForward is also working with Apprenticeships for America and CareerWise on larger scale policy changes that would make it easier for people to register as apprentices and for employers to access funding. Smaller healthcare systems often lack the capacity to sponsor registered programs, much less apply for federal grants that are a primary funding source. The groups’ policy agenda includes targeted wage support for employers, particularly for those employing youth apprentices, as well as employer incentives like tax credits.
“There’s really no funding source that would help an employer make the decision to start and launch programs,” Willey says. “We’d like employers to be able to receive some of the grant funding dollars, so that they will come to the table and be eager to partner. Then there is some incentive for them to take the plunge.”