What Works in Healthcare-Focused High Schools: The Boston Case Study

The Project on Workforce is leading a multi-year evaluation of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Healthcare-Focused High Schools Initiative, which supports partnerships between education and health systems to expand student economic opportunity and address healthcare workforce shortages. The Boston Case Study examines the early planning and implementation of one of the Initiative’s sites, highlighting how education–health system collaboration is shaping student recruitment, career pathways, and workforce development outcomes.

Authors: Ariel Higuchi, Nathania Silalahi, Julie Tassinari, Maddy Langan, G. Matthew Snodgrass

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Established in 2024, the Bloomberg Philanthropies Healthcare-Focused High Schools Initiative supports innovative health-education system partnerships in 12 sites across the United States. Each of these partnerships consists of a health system, at least one secondary school, and at least one postsecondary institution, with the goals of: (1) preparing high school students for in-demand healthcare careers that yield family-sustaining wages, and (2) providing health systems with a talent pipeline to fill key roles with workforce shortages. The Project on Workforce at Harvard University is conducting a multi-year, mixed methods evaluation of the Initiative to capture whether and how these goals are achieved. As a part of this evaluation, the evaluation team conducted this case study to document insights from Boston–one of five sites that launched in the 2024-25 school year. 

The Boston partnership is jointly led by the Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers (EMK) and the Mass General Brigham (MGB) health system, with active support from the City of Boston and Boston Public Schools, and an emerging collaboration with Bunker Hill Community College. This case study examines the early planning and implementation of EMK’s redesign, based on interviews, site observations, and document reviews conducted between October 2025 and February 2026.

In this case study, we focus on three core themes: (1) the health-education system partnership, (2) student recruitment for the program, and (3) healthcare pathway and curriculum development. Student and caregiver experiences, as well as reflections on the transition to the Initiative’s second year, are integrated across all of the themes explored.

The research yielded three key takeaways at this early stage of implementation: 

1. Deep mission alignment and strong leadership have enabled a strong partnership between EMK and MGB. Intentional governance structures and a strong core team with pre-existing relationships and technical expertise have enabled deep engagement and collaboration across stakeholders. The teams are focused on navigating structural challenges to acquire a new facility and optimizing partnership processes going forward.

2. Student recruitment is evolving into a more collaborative and data-driven process. Early findings suggest that in-person, culturally responsive approaches prioritizing student fit have been successful, even as the school faces some structural constraints and uncertainties during its transition. 

3. Partners quickly launched sustainable, hands-on career pathways that align hospital needs with student interest and economic opportunity. EMK and MGB mapped pathways in nursing, emergency services, perioperative services, medical imaging, and medical laboratory science/pathology to three state-approved Career Technical Education (CTE) programs and achieved Early College designation, requiring several programmatic and scheduling shifts. Experiential learning is emerging as a powerful driver of student engagement, even as certain staffing and coordination details are still being refined. 

As the Boston partnership enters its next phase, the focus is shifting from launch to sustainability and scale. The case study insights reveal opportunities for EMK and MGB to further institutionalize partnership infrastructure, strengthen postsecondary partnerships, and advance long-term planning related to financial sustainability and graduate outcomes.

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About the Project on Workforce 

The Project on Workforce is an interdisciplinary, collaborative project between the Harvard Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, the Harvard Business School Managing the Future of Work Project, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The Project produces and catalyzes basic and applied research at the intersection of education and labor markets for leaders in business, education, and policy. The Project’s research aims to help shape a postsecondary system of the future that creates more and better pathways to economic mobility and forges smoother transitions between education and careers. 

Please direct inquiries to: Ariel Higuchi (ariel_higuchi@hks.harvard.edu)

Suggested Citation: Ariel Higuchi, Nathania Silalahi, et al. (April 2026). What Works in Healthcare-Focused High Schools: The Boston Case Study. Published by the Harvard Kennedy School.