MemorialCare and Long Beach State Pen Innovative New Partnership
Cal State Long Beach and MemorialCare announced today a new partnership to transform health care education, bolster the number of allied health practitioners entering the workforce, and promote health equity in the community.
Building on decades of working together in preparing nurses at MemorialCare’s Long Beach Medical Center and Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital Long Beach, a key component of the new partnership is the creation of a new clinic on the university campus that will combine clinical education with clinical practice — unique in the state of California — to deliver the core programs of primary care, executive/concierge health, geriatric assessment, back pain, and sports medicine. The clinic is slated to open in Spring 2026.
“We are pleased to expand our partnership with Cal State Long Beach on a unique relationship that will innovate healthcare workforce training and education,” says Barry Arbuckle, President and CEO, MemorialCare. “Both of our institutions have a successful history of driving change and taking health education and care delivery to the next level. Together we are grateful to be able to support the statewide need for workforce development and training.”
The suite of programs will address patient care and social determinants of health, support the educational needs of students within Cal State Long Beach’s College of Health and Human Services under the leadership of Dean Monica Lounsbery, and expand clinical practice to new areas such as dietary evaluation, nutrition counseling, exercise prescription, exercise testing, sport injury treatment and prevention, mental and behavioral health, and speech and language therapies. This environment will also serve as a test site for other disciplines, such as hospitality management in designing the welcome process and overall on-site experience.
“Traditional models require universities to compete for clinical workforce placements for students to receive on-site service hours. Embedding the clinic within the CSULB campus ensures increased access to clinical rotations while enabling qualified faculty to take leadership roles within the clinic,” said Jane Close Conoley, president of Cal State Long Beach.
The clinic will allow for bold and intentional innovations of systemic challenges including the delivery of cost-effective and superior patient care while also increasing the quality of clinical education and growing the health care workforce.
“We are proud of our long-standing nearly 20-year partnership with Cal State Long Beach not only because of the number of nurses we have been able to bring into the workforce with a bachelor’s degree, but the high caliber, quality level of nursing these graduates provide to our patients,” said John Bishop, CEO, MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center and Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital Long Beach. “We look forward to expanding the partnership and bringing additional clinical disciplines into the program and eventually hiring them throughout healthcare facilities in the community, as well as our MemorialCare hospitals and clinics.”
“On behalf of the city, congratulations to CSULB and MemorialCare on this great new public-private partnership,” said Mayor Robert Garcia. “In Long Beach, we strive to be innovators, and this agreement will establish a completely new model of training – growing our future healthcare workforce both here in the city and throughout the region.”
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About the campus
Founded in 1949, California State University, Long Beach is ranked in the top 3% of higher education institutions in the country, No. 3 top performer in promoting social mobility, and No. 4 in the nation for producing bachelor's degrees to underrepresented students. The 322-acre campus enrolls more than 39,000 students and boasts over 355,000 alumni who positively impact the community, state, and nation.