Resource Details

Growing Our Own: Cultivating the Next Generation of Primary Care Physicians in Community Health Centers

Year Developed: 2017

Resource Type: Publication.

Primary Audience: Board of Directors C-Suite (CEOs, CFOs, CIO, COOs, CMOs, etc.) Clinicians
Secondary Audience: Administrative Staff PCAs

Language(s): English

Developed by: National Association of Community Health Centers (See other resources developed by this organization).

Resource Summary: It is critical to advance policies and programs that help community health centers (CHCs) become Educational Health Centers (EHCs)2 and “grow their own” primary care training opportunities. This paper explores several pathways for promoting CHCs as teaching environments - enhanced partnerships between Academic Medical Centers (AMCs) and CHCs (with either the AMC or the CHC as the sponsoring institution3), and CHCs participating in HRSA Teaching Health Center (THC) funding opportunities (with sponsorship either by the CHC alone or by a consortium body) - and posits a spectrum of options and costs associated with each of these pathways to train medical residents.

Resource Details: While more work is needed to create an adequate supply of CHCs in the first place – by some estimates almost half of MUAs lack a health center – one direct path for maximizing the benefit of CHCs where they exist is to support their role as teaching environments, cultivating the next generation of primary care providers. This paper focuses on residency training for primary care physicians.

Resource Topic: Clinical Issues, Operations, Promising/Best Practices, , Special and Vulnerable Populations, Value-Based Health Care Transformation, Workforce, Health Equity

Resource Subtopic: Financial performance improvement, Sustainability, Administrative Policies, Human Resources, Patient Centered Medical Home, , Population Health, Patient-Centered Health Outcomes, Programs and Services, Value-Based Payment, Development/Training, , Financial performance improvement, Partnerships, Reduced Cost, Satisfaction, Impact/Outcomes, Strategic Planning, Health Professions Education and Training (HP-ET), Social Determinants of Health (SDOH), Operational Feasibility, Implementation Feasibility.

Keywords: Access to Care, Hiring, Integrated Care, Policies and Procedures, Quadruple Aim (Formerly Triple Aim), Safety Net Providers, Staffing and Onboarding, Strategic Planning, Team-Based Care.