After working as a home health care aide for a half-dozen years, Falanda Stevenson decided she would like to get the training to allow her to work in a hospital or nursing home.

Studying to become a certified nursing assistant can be expensive, and few agencies offer the training for free. But last year, the Buffalo resident completed a grant-funded, three-month program at the New Hope Education Center.

And last month, Stevenson started her new job as a CNA at Ridge View Manor Nursing Home in South Buffalo, where she earns $10.72 per hour tending to the residents basic needs.

Its like a breath of fresh air. You end up making a change in your life, something for the better, something that can better yourself and your children and your home. I love it, she said.

As Stevenson learned, the regions hospitals, nursing homes, health insurance companies, medical practices and biotech companies last year filled thousands of positions in a hiring boomlet that is expected to continue well into 2015.

The health care industry is a key piece of the regional economy, and government and private institutions are amplifying the existing infrastructure with hundreds of millions of dollars meant to boost health care delivery and biomedical research.

The available jobs range from positions accessible to high school graduates to positions that require graduate or post-graduate education.

Experts say hiring in the hottest fields such as medical coding, health analytics and home health care is driven by industry trends and advances in technology. And nonprofit agencies and colleges are adjusting their programs to meet the need.

With 74,400 workers, as of November, the health care sector accounts for 13 percent of the overall workforce in the Buffalo Niagara metro area, according to the state Labor Department. And hiring in health care has outpaced overall hiring going back a decade.

Between November 2004 and November 2014, employment in the health care sector rose by 6.9 percent here, according to the Labor Department, better than the anemic 0.6 percent increase in all employment over the last 10 years.

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Health care expected to remain a source of jobs in 2015