The UNC-led national consortium has received a new $5 million award from the Health Resources & Service Administration (HRSA) Bureau of Health Workforce to facilitate the development of training programs for physicians and dentists in underserved areas.
The new funding is in addition to $4.3 million awarded in August 2021 and $3.2 million awarded in 2018 from the HRSA Federal Office of Rural Health Policy for the Rural GME Center. UNC School of Medicine Executive Dean Cristy Page, MD, MPH, founded the Rural GME Center, a national consortium of experts in medical education, health workforce and rural health policy, in 2018 during her tenure as Chair of the Department of Family Medicine. Emily Hawes, PharmD, BCPS, CPP, an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, helps direct the national consortium and serves as Co-PI.
Page; Hawes; Erin Fraher, PhD, MPP, Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Director of the Carolina Health Workforce Research Center; Mark Holmes, MD, MPH, of The Cecil G. Sheps Center; and Adam Zolotor, MD, DrPH, of NC AHEC; work in collaboration with the HRSA Office of Rural Health Policy and Bureau of Health Workforce to implement these cooperative efforts. The consortium also includes the University of Washington, the University of Wisconsin, and the UNC Adams School of Dentistry, among other community and academic partners across the country.
The consortium has produced extensive research on rural and underserved health workforce development, which has resulted in new policies that support increased access to rural and underserved care. Nationally, only eight new rural training tracks were developed in the eight-year period prior to the founding of the Rural GME Center. Since 2018, the consortium has directly supported 47 new programs that received funding from HRSA's Rural Residency Planning and Development Program (RRPD), as well as additional programs across the nation. A total of 283 new rural training positions have been accredited in the last 2 years. Training programs span internal medicine, family medicine, general surgery, and psychiatry and work to create the next generation of rural health leaders. The new award reflects the continued successful partnership with HRSA, as well as the positive results generated by the Rural GME Center. Moving forward, Page and team will expand their existing rural efforts to additional underserved communities in community health centers across the nation. The consortium will support 48 new teaching health center programs in the specialties of family medicine, psychiatry, pediatrics, internal medicine, general dentistry and pediatric dentistry.
