CE – Introducing Professional Growth & Innovation
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Last updated: September 1, 2026
The Center for Professional Growth & Innovation is Northwestern Health Sciences University’s hub for continuing education, lifelong learning, educational innovation, workforce development, and strategic partnerships. As healthcare evolves, the Center helps healthcare professionals, employers, and organizations build the knowledge, skills, and partnerships needed to thrive throughout every stage of their careers.
The Center for Professional Growth & Innovation is more than a continuing education department. It’s an innovation hub where lifelong learning, strategic partnerships, and new educational ideas come together to help healthcare professionals and the organizations they serve prepare for what’s next.”
— Dr. Becky Pauly, DC, BS
Executive Director, Program Innovation, Continuing Education & Business Development
Healthcare has always evolved. Today, however, the pace of change is unlike anything we’ve experienced before.
Artificial intelligence is transforming how clinicians access information. New research continually reshapes evidence-informed care. Workforce shortages, changing reimbursement models, emerging technologies, and growing expectations for collaborative, patient-centered care are redefining what it means to practice healthcare.
For healthcare professionals, earning a degree is no longer the finish line. It’s the beginning of a career that requires continuous learning, adaptability, and innovation.
Recognizing those changes, Northwestern Health Sciences University created the Center for Professional Growth & Innovation, a new hub for continuing education, lifelong learning, educational innovation, workforce development, and strategic partnerships.
The Center builds on NWHSU’s long-standing commitment to continuing education while expanding opportunities for healthcare professionals, employers, and organizations to learn, innovate, and grow together throughout every stage of a career.
Because today’s healthcare professionals need more than continuing education alone, they need a lifelong learning partner.
Why Professional Learning Is Changing
Continuing education has long helped healthcare professionals maintain licensure and stay current in practice. Those goals remain as important as ever.
Healthcare careers, however, look very different than they did even a decade ago.
Today’s clinicians often pursue advanced certifications, expand into new specialties, become business owners, lead interdisciplinary teams, mentor future providers, teach, conduct research, and integrate rapidly evolving technologies into patient care.
Healthcare organizations face similar challenges. They need educational partners who can help prepare their workforce for new technologies, changing regulations, evolving patient expectations, and workforce shortages.
Professional growth has become much more than earning CE credits.
It has become a lifelong process of learning, adapting, collaborating, and preparing for what’s next.
Universities have an opportunity, and a responsibility, to support that journey.
More Than Continuing Education
The Center was created to meet the changing needs of healthcare professionals, employers, and organizations.
Think of it less as a traditional continuing education department and more as an innovation hub.
Its purpose is to bring together healthcare professionals, employers, faculty, alumni, students, and industry leaders across disciplines to create educational opportunities that respond to real-world healthcare challenges.
That work begins by asking important questions:
- What changes are happening across healthcare?
- What skills will professionals need next?
- Where are workforce gaps emerging?
- What educational opportunities don’t yet exist?
- Who should be brought together to solve these challenges?
The answers become new educational programs, strategic partnerships, workforce initiatives, and innovative learning opportunities that prepare healthcare professionals for the future.
Three Ways the Center Supports Professional Growth
Lifelong Learning
Learning doesn’t end at graduation.
Healthcare professionals need opportunities to continue growing throughout every stage of their careers—whether they’re maintaining licensure, earning a certification, exploring a new specialty, or preparing for leadership.
The Center offers continuing education, certificate programs, symposia, on-demand learning, and professional development opportunities that help clinicians continue learning long after they leave the classroom.
Because in healthcare, staying current isn’t optional—it’s essential.
Program Innovation
Healthcare changes quickly.
Education should evolve just as quickly.
The Center works with faculty, healthcare experts, employers, and industry partners to identify emerging needs and develop innovative educational programs that prepare professionals for tomorrow’s healthcare landscape.
One example is the Master of Health Science in Human Performance, developed in partnership with NWHSU’s College of Health and Wellness to address evolving workforce needs.
Future opportunities may include graduate programs, interdisciplinary certificates, micro-credentials, and customized educational experiences that respond to emerging healthcare trends.
Strategic Partnerships
Innovation rarely happens in isolation.
Some of the most meaningful educational opportunities begin with conversations between universities, employers, healthcare organizations, and professional associations.
The Center collaborates with organizations such as Optum Clinics, Rayus Radiology, RVO Health, WeCare, Nutrition Dynamics, Erchonia, and many others to develop customized education and training that addresses workforce development and professional growth. These partnerships include custom courses, webinars, on-demand learning, continuing education credentialing services, and other educational solutions designed to meet each organization’s unique needs.
These partnerships extend beyond the classroom.
Together, they’re helping shape the future of healthcare education.
Collaboration Creates Better Healthcare
Healthcare has become increasingly interconnected.
No single profession can solve today’s healthcare challenges alone.
Patient outcomes improve when healthcare professionals understand one another’s expertise and work together across disciplines.
That collaborative philosophy has always been central to Northwestern Health Sciences University.
Because NWHSU has long championed integrative healthcare, the Center is uniquely positioned to bring together professionals from chiropractic, acupuncture, massage therapy, health coaching, nutrition, and other healthcare disciplines to learn from one another, solve emerging challenges, and improve patient care.
As programming continues to expand, including future opportunities in CME and licensed professional counselor education, the Center will continue creating opportunities for collaboration that strengthen healthcare teams and improve patient outcomes.
Learning That Lasts a Lifetime
Professional growth looks different for every healthcare professional.
For one clinician, it may mean earning a certification that expands patient services.
For another, it may involve developing leadership skills, launching a business, mentoring students, or pursuing graduate education.
For employers, professional growth may mean creating customized workforce education that helps an entire organization succeed.
Every journey is unique.
What they all share is a commitment to lifelong learning.
The Center exists to support those journeys, from graduation through retirement, and to ensure healthcare professionals always have access to the knowledge, partnerships, and educational opportunities they need to continue making a difference.
Looking Ahead
Healthcare will continue to evolve.
Technology will advance.
Patient expectations will change.
New discoveries will reshape clinical practice.
The healthcare professionals who thrive will be those who embrace lifelong learning—not simply because they have to, but because they recognize that continuous growth leads to better care.
The Center for Professional Growth & Innovation reflects Northwestern Health Sciences University’s commitment to supporting healthcare professionals throughout that journey.
Whether you’re looking to earn continuing education credits, pursue a new credential, develop your workforce, explore a strategic partnership, or bring a new educational idea to life, the Center is designed to connect you with the people, programs, and opportunities that move healthcare forward.
Because learning doesn’t end with a degree–it continues throughout a career. Together, we can shape what’s next for healthcare.