North Country HealthCare has received notice of an early holiday gift. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has announced that it will fund North Country’s family medicine residency program with a $5.4 million grant over four years. Four new doctors are expected to begin training in July 2020.
HRSA’s funding will come from its Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education (THCGME) Program. The award will come in $150,000 amounts per year for each resident trained. As a three-year program, 12
residents will be in the program by 2022, meaning HRSA will provide $1.8 million that year and every year thereafter.
The purpose of the THCGME Program is to expand primary care residency training programs in community-based outpatient care centers. North Country HealthCare’s residency program is designed to prepare doctors to provide high quality care in rural and underserved communities in Northern Arizona, and develop expertise to serve these diverse populations and communities.
Officials say this funding opportunity from the THCGME Program was extremely competitive and that North Country HealthCare was one of very few newly funded programs, the first in Arizona.
“This funding will be the ‘bread and butter’ for North Country HealthCare’s residency program, providing ongoing public support for the direct and indirect operational costs of running a residency program,” said North Country CEO Anne Newland. “The funds will pay for resident salaries, along with clinical faculty and administrative costs.”
North Country HealthCare has already begun interviewing potential primary care physician residents who will start their training this summer. Residents will have rotations throughout North Country HealthCare’s service region of Coconino, Mohave, Navajo and Apache counties. The program will also have required rural rotations in Tuba City, Polacca and Whiteriver, making it the only graduate medical education program in the country with required rotations in Indian Country.
Dire Physician Shortage
Right now, Arizona needs an additional 605 primary care physicians to address its shortage of health professionals, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. In fact, Arizona is ranked 38th in the nation in the number of primary care providers per 100,000 population. Not having access to a primary care provider makes routine check-ups and ongoing care difficult to obtain, and it has a negative impact on the quality of life of Arizona’s most vulnerable communities.
Access to care is especially dire in Arizona’s rural, frontier and Native American communities, where the population to provider ratio is 3,896 to 1. HRSA considers an area to be high-need if it has a population-to-provider ratio of 2,000 to 1 or greater.
Making a Difference
Newland says one of the most impactful ways to increase the number of doctors in an area is to teach and train doctors in the communities of greatest need, adding that research suggests physicians are more likely to practice where they train.
“This is why we’re launching our family medicine residency program,” said North Country CEO Anne Newland, M.D., MPH. “We need more primary care physicians in our region of the state, especially in the most isolated rural areas. Northern Arizona’s communities deserve to have access to the highest quality family practice physicians available; in short, we have no choice but to grow our own.”
Economic Impact
North Country HealthCare and the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association (AzHHA) commissioned an economic impact study to ascertain how a family medicine residency program would affect the economy and patient access to care. The result of the independent economic-impact study shows “significant possible economic impact” to the state and expanded patient access to care in a 10-year period.
The study, prepared by Rounds Consulting Group, Inc., shows that increasing the number of physician residents at North Country HealthCare alone will result in 136 high-paying jobs and $151.7 million in economic output for Northern Arizona over the span of a decade.
Community Collaboration is Key
“A residency program belongs to the community; it’s an investment in the community’s future,” said Newland.
North Country HealthCare has established key partnerships and affiliations throughout Northern Arizona. The NARBHA Institute has provided $3 million over five years to support the residency program, and the Arizona legislature recently appropriated $750,000. Affiliated training sites include Flagstaff Medical Center, Hopi Health Care Center, Kingman Regional Medical Center, Little Colorado Medical Center, Tuba City Regional Health Care, Whiteriver Indian Hospital and Winslow Indian Health Care Center.
North Country HealthCare serves as the medical home for nearly 55,000 people throughout Northern Arizona, 20,000 of whom reside in Flagstaff and the surrounding area. For more information on the locations, programs and services, call 928-522-9400 or visit northcountryhealthcare.org. FBN
By FBN Staff
Hear more about the doctor shortage crisis and how North Country HealthCare is working to bring physicians to Northern Arizona communities most in need. Family Medicine Residency Program Director Ed Paul, M.D., joins On the Grid host Bonnie Stevens in this month’s podcast. Visit FlagstaffBusinessNews.com
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