Demand for medical assistants in Hawaii far outstrips supply, after Heald College shut down three years ago and Med-Assist of Hawaii lost its accreditation in February.

So Hawaii Pacific Health has teamed up with Kapiolani Community College and five public high schools to launch an innovative program to train students as medical assistants during their senior year. Graduates who pass the national certification exam will be given priority for jobs at HPH facilities.

“Heald was producing about 200 medical assistants a year,” said Carl Hinson, director of workforce development at Hawaii Pacific Health. “That was 50 percent of our training capacity in the entire state. When it closed it was a huge blow.”

The new approach offers students a chance to jump onto a career path with no tuition costs since the courses are offered in high school. The curriculum mirrors the Kapiolani Community College medical assistant program and is taught by KCC professors and and high school teachers. It culminates in an externship providing real-work experience.

The intensive 15-month program is starting small on purpose and has enrolled 22 students from Aiea, Campbell, Kapolei, Pearl City and Waipahu high schools.

“We are using this year as a pilot,” Hinson said. “We think next year we are going to expand the program significantly. The need is so extreme. On any given day I have 50 medical assistant openings.”

HPH encompasses four medical centers — Kapiolani, Pali Momi, Straub and Wilcox — and numerous clinics and doctor’s offices.

“What really caught my eye is just getting a head start,” said Kristine Ramirez, a 16-year-old senior at Waipahu High who hopes eventually to become a nurse but now plans to start off as a medical assistant. “I want to do clinical work, and I want to learn these skills now. It’s so exciting.”

Medical assistants work with physicians, nurses and others to help take care of patients, handling clinical and administrative duties. That includes scheduling appointments, checking in patients, collecting information, preparing them for exams, explaining procedures and doctor’s instructions, and updating medical records.

Students in the program take classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Waipahu High and go to Straub Clinic at Pearlridge on Saturdays for clinical practice. Monday’s coursework is online, while the other sessions are face to face.

Students say they are able to handle the heavy load because many of them have completed or are close to finishing their high school graduation requirements.

Judy Ann Cabico, student body vice president at Waipahu High, is juggling the program, along with an Eng­lish class, a photography elective and her capstone honors project.

“I want to be a radiologist, but I know it will take years for me to get there, so I think building my experience and work ethic through this program would help me a lot,” she said. “They talked about a guaranteed job, and I was like, oh wow, that’s really great! It’s like a big bonus.”

“It does save my parents a lot of money too,” she added. “HPH covers everything except for our books. My parents were on board once they heard that.”

Coursework includes anatomy and physiology, medical terminology, administrative medical assisting and clinical medical assisting, among other classes. Students can later complete their general education classes for an associate’s degree or pursue further education.

“But this way they can literally start working when they graduate from high school in a really decent-paying occupation,” Hinson said. Medical assistants start at roughly $20 an hour, he said.

“So many of our children do go off to college, but we’ve got a large number that don’t necessarily want to make that decision at this point in their lives,” he said.

Hinson had thought other programs would expand to fill the void after the Heald College campus in Honolulu was closed in 2015 by its parent company, Corinthian Colleges, along with other campuses across the country. But that did not happen.

Then Med-Assist of Hawaii lost its accreditation as of Feb. 6, according to the Accrediting Bureau of Health Education Schools. The program appears to have closed as no one answers the phone and a message indicates its mailbox is full.

Hinson said he considered it a “wild idea” when he floated the notion of a high school program to Waipahu’s principal, Keith Hayashi, and was surprised when the principal responded, “I think we can make it work.” They reached out to Mae Dorado, assistant professor of health sciences at KCC, who worked with them to fashion the program.

“The wild idea happened in February, and we started meeting with the parents and students in April and May, to get them ready over the summer,” Hinson said.

Hayashi reached out to fellow principals in the area to see whether their students might be interested, and they kicked off the program this semester. Hayashi said it dovetails perfectly with his school’s health and sciences career academy, which offers pathways in medical biotechnology, clinical health, and health and nutrition.

“We want to be sure that when our students graduate from high school, they are prepared for whatever area they are interested in pursuing, whether four-year college or a medical assist program like this,” Hayashi said.

”It takes a coordinated effort with industry, with K-12 and with postsecondary, and wonderful things can happen,” he said.