Rural Residency Planning and Development Program - Eligible Entity Type: GME consortium Pathway: General primary care & high-need specialty Residency Specialty & Format: Psychiatry RTP Sponsoring Institution: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, ACGME Sponsor Code: 269501 Rural Target Counties: Minnesota counties of Kandiyohi, Douglas, Otter Tail, Crow Wing, & Todd Funding Requested: $750,000 Program Sustainability: Option 2 Projected Number of Residents: 2 per year for a 2-2-2-2 model Expected ACGME Accreditation: Expansion of Accredited Program; expecting approved complement increase 7/2026 Residency Matriculation: July 1, 2027 Funding Priority: N/A List of HRSA Awards: 37 awards in 5 HRSA program areas. Detailed list is provided as Attachment 10. This RRPD proposal is to plan and develop a Psychiatry Rural Track Program (RTP) as an expansion of the UMN Psychiatry Residency Program, increasing the number of psychiatrists who train in a rural area thereby expanding the psychiatry workforce to improve healthcare in underserved rural areas. Goals: 1) Plan and develop a new Psychiatry RTP that would offer more than 50% of psychiatry training in one of two rural hubs: Willmar, and Brainerd/Baxter, MN with consortium members UMN, CentraCare Health System (CC), Minnesota Department of Human Services, VA Health Care System, Astera Health, and Lakewood Health System that can host at least two residents per year for four years, and 2) ensure financial, curricular and structural viability for the RTP to maintain an ongoing successful program long after the grant period ends. Major objectives: 1) build on existing partnership between the UMN and CC to ensure a robust organizational and educational base meeting ACGME requirements for a program expansion with complement increase; develop a curriculum for community-oriented psychiatry training that enhances primary healthcare delivery in rural areas drawing on experience from the national RTT Collaborative, the educational experiences of Department of Family Medicine and Community Health (DFMCH) and the St. Cloud Family Medicine (FM) residency program, and the UMN Psychiatry Residency Program; and recruit residents for the RTP, 2) ensure appropriate ongoing funding for the RTP for continued functioning of the RTP, 3) Develop a graduate tracking plan for the RTP, and 4) learn from the experience of setting up an RTP in MN to encourage and develop other RTP programs in MN. The project will be based in St. Cloud, Stearns County, MN with non-rural sites in Hennepin, Stearns and Wright counties, and >50% of the training serving rural counties of Crow Wing, Douglas, Kandiyohi, Otter Tail, and Todd. The partnership between the academic psychiatry program at UMN and CC, a rural oriented health care system, builds on existing academic partnerships. The clinical sites for rural training include rural hub in Willmar at CC facilities at Rice Memorial Hospital, Skylark Behavioral Health Clinic and New London Primary Care Clinic, DHS Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health Hospital; rural hub in Brainerd/Baxter at CentraCare Baxter Primary Care Clinic, VA Clinic in Brainerd, Lakewood Health Psychiatry Clinic in Staples, Astera Health Psychiatry Clinic in Wadena, and DHS Community Behavioral Health Hospital in Baxter; required rural experience in Alexandria with the VA Clinic and the DHS Community Behavioral Health Hospital. We will use rigorous and transformative educational methods to achieve these objectives with resources of UMN, using telehealth and other innovative tools in teaching and care delivery. We will recruit medical students from across the US and IMGs interested in rural psychiatric care. We will also build on the current educational experience of the existing successful rural-focused FM residency at CC St. Cloud sponsored by the UMN and the development of the new FM RTP at CC Willmar also sponsored by the UMN. Our primary measure of success will be graduates of the RTP functioning as rural psychiatrists in MN and across the US.
