Tacoma Community College Health Programs records

The Healthcare program at TCC was an early part of the college’s efforts to develop occupational programs in the early 1970s. Many of these programs started as partnerships with existing programs and institutions, and the healthcare program began with St. Joseph’s Hospital and Tacoma General Hospital to provide associate’s degrees in several health care professions. Coordinating with St. Joseph’s Schools of Nursing, X-Ray Technology, and Medical Records Technology, and with Tacoma General’s School of X-Ray Technology, TCC was able to offer three programs beginning in 1968. In turn, the hospitals’ schools sent their directly-enrolled students to TCC for supporting classes. TCC continued building capacity for these programs on campus, and when St. Joseph’s curriculum shifted pathways away from the community college in 1972, TCC was ready to begin its fully on-campus program. Nevertheless, St. Joseph’s – and other area hospitals including Lakewood, Good Samaritan, Madigan Army Hospital, the Veteran's Hospital at American Lake – continued to open its doors to TCC nursing students for clinical training opportunities during their degree programs.

As TCC built its on-campus capacity for health careers training, the college added programs for respiratory care, medical secretary, emergency medical care, human service worker in the first half of the 1970s. Programs were designed to allow students to be eligible for necessary certifications and exams such as the Washington state Emergency Medical Technician certification, Pierce County Mobile Intensive Care Paramedic certification, and licensing and registry exams for Registered Nurses and X-Ray Technologists, and were fully accredited by various bodies such as the State Board of Nursing, the State of Washington Emergency Medical and Ambulance Review Committee, the American Medical Association Committee on Allied Health Education, the American Medical Record Association, the Joint Review Committee on Education in Radiologic Technology, and the Joint Review Committee for Inhalation Therapy Education. Programs such as the human service worker and medical secretary tracks included internship placements for direct work experience at locations such as Remann Hall (the juvenile detention center). Toward the end of the 1970s another slate of programs for gerontology specialist, medical assistant, medical transcriptionist, and optometric technology (1979) were added. By the mid-1980s, the nursing program was ranked the best in the state.

The fast pace of new programs added to TCC’s health careers finally began to slow in the 1980s, nevertheless new areas of health records/admitting clerk (1983), home health specialist (1987), medical reimbursement specialist, pharmacy technician (1999), health information coding (2001); computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging (2003) were added in the following decades.

While some of these programs have been retired or reorganized over the following decades, the Allied Health, Community Health, Emergency Medical Services, Health Information, Imaging Sciences, Nuclear Medicine Technology, Nursing, and Respiratory Therapy programs remain active parts of the college under the Healthcare Pathway. TCC added its first Bachelor's degree in 2016 with the Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Health Information Management program, and in 2018 added a BAS in Community Health.

Sources: General catalogs, 1968/67-2018/19; Board of Trustees minutes, 1971; The Collegiate Challenge, 1973-1983.