DPH outlines workforce-development push: internships, reduced registry use and PeopleSoft pilot

Ron Bridal, the Department of Public Health’s human resources director, presented a detailed update on workforce demographics, recruitment and training strategies designed to prepare the department for the new hospital opening and shifts in payment models.

Bridal said the department has expanded recruitment capacity and reduced use of registry staff, and he highlighted four workforce-development pillars: trauma-informed systems, racial humility, lean thinking and collective impact. He described several pathway programs: Faces for the Future (a spring internship starting March 9 with a first cohort of nine students), Year Up cohorts for young adults, a three-year IT apprenticeship program (described as '10/10') intended to build internal IT capacity, and a mayor's office program called Interrupt, Predict and Organize aimed at employment for at-risk youth in hotspot neighborhoods.

Bridal also discussed people-data challenges: the HR information currently draws from multiple systems, which complicates accurate counts by classification and requires manual reconciliation. He said PeopleSoft 'Emerge' is the planned future system of record and described an Emerge pilot for performance-appraisal and e‑learning launched last October covering 460 employees, with plans to broaden use for roughly 7,200 learners (city employees and Zuckerberg San Francisco General/UCSF partners). Bridal requested continued support to improve Emerge interoperability and to repurpose budgeted positions for career-counseling and mentoring.

Commissioners praised progress and asked for more granular data on capitation and patient capture in the finance conversation; the HR update concluded with commitments to report back on diversity targets and workforce metrics tied to staffing for the new hospital.