When a union of health care workers in New York joined forces with health care organizations in Ireland, they never imagined in their wildest dreams the success and progress that would take place in a short few years.

Executive director of the New York-based 1199 SEIU Training and Employment Funds Deborah King spoke to the Irish Voice last week about her pet venture, the International Action Research Project (IARP), a collaborative initiative that brings together international leaders in healthcare to compare best practices in quality.

King, who is married to Liam King from Co. Offaly, saw first hand how the Irish healthcare system was in dire straits when she lived in Dublin. It was only when she returned to New York and began working with the 1199 SEIU that she realized she could be influential in bringing about change in Ireland.

“It’s really about what Ireland can learn from the United States and what are the best practices,” said King, who proudly told the Irish Voice she received her Irish citizenship two years ago.

King explains the main idea behind the IARP is to train workers in the healthcare industry, from the dinner server to the nurses, to improve the quality of care given to the patient and enhance working conditions for those employed.

Healthcare organizations and on-the-ground staff from Belfast and Dublin travel to New York several times a year to see how the American healthcare system works.

King explains it’s all about empowering the Irish workers who come to visit the various hospitals and training centers in New York so they can go back to Ireland with a “if they can do it we can too” attitude because they see it working first hand.

“We work with everyone from the catering workers and porters up into every department and we provide them with best practices that they can bring back to Ireland with them,” said King.

From these visits, people take home with them new models of work ethic and procedures. One such model that is currently being replicated is a training center in Harlem. In 2002 the training center was set up as part of a joint project between IARP and the City University of New York to help people in the community.

“In West Belfast they are at stage one, which is to develop the careers and upgrade workers to the next level,” explained King, who said that their aim is to also create a similar training center in Belfast.

“It’s very exciting that something we are doing here is seen to work at home in Belfast. The trainees come from both communities so community organizations are working together too,” King said.

Although the project is still at its initial stages with 120 people a year being trained, they are now qualified to work in any hospital that has an opening anywhere in Belfast.

Although the primary focus of the project is for other countries to learn from the U.S. model, King explains that after a recent visit to Belfast, the 1199SEIU have adopted a training method they saw in action in Belfast.

“We are now doing a program here that somewhat mirrors Belfast. Because 1199SEIU is a union-connected project we always looked to upgrade our existing members but we never thought about training new people to work in the healthcare field,” King said.

“In Belfast they create opportunities that don’t currently exist by training general workers like care assistants to get more skills both in hospitals and nursing homes so they can move up and therefore create job openings that can be filled by people from unemployed areas of the city. It’s like a domino effect,” King added.