Rural Residency Planning and Development Program - The University of Utah (UU) Family Medicine Residency in Salt Lake City, Utah and Ashley Regional Medical Center (ARMC) in Vernal, Utah will partner to create a new Rural Track Program (RTP) in Family Medicine, expanding the existing residency by two residents per year. The RTP will train full-spectrum family physicians, inclusive of comprehensive maternity care, with the goal of preparing graduates to practice in rural Utah. Currently, Utah has no family medicine rural track program and no rural residency programs in family medicine or any other specialty. This RTP will expand graduate medical education opportunities and strengthen the future rural physician workforce. Rural Utah faces significant health care workforce shortages and limited access to care. Given that most of the state's population and physicians are concentrated along the Wasatch Front, rural communities experience higher barriers to primary care, preventive services, behavioral health care, and maternity care. Utah also ranks among the states with the lowest numbers of primary care physicians per capita. Of Utah's 29 counties, 25 are rural and 12 are frontier. ARMC, a Sole Community Hospital, and its affiliated primary care clinic are located in Vernal, a community approximately three hours from Salt Lake City in the Uintah Basin region. This region (comprised of Uintah, Duchesne, and Daggett Counties) is entirely rural, with Daggett County additionally designated as frontier. All three counties are Primary Care and Mental Health Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) and Maternity Care Target Areas. ARMC serves approximately 60,000 residents across the Uintah Basin. The region experiences substantial economic and health disparities, including lower educational attainment, lower household income, higher poverty and uninsured rates, and greater burdens of diabetes, hypertension, obesity, opioid use, depression, and suicide than Utah averages. Access to maternity care is limited, and the region has fewer family physicians, maternal health providers, and behavioral health providers than statewide averages. Through this RTP, UU will serve as the urban hub and ARMC as the rural training partner, creating a pipeline of broadly trained, full-spectrum family physicians prepared to address rural Utah's needs in primary care, chronic disease management, behavioral health, preventive care, and maternity care. Dedicated faculty and staff will support program development and implementation. By the end of Year 2 of the planning grant, the program will obtain ACGME approval for RTP expansion positions. In Year 3, the program will recruit and match its first class of two residents, who will begin training in July 2029. The RTP will leverage the UU's established graduate medical education infrastructure and ARMC's clinical training environment. Graduate outcomes will be tracked and reported through existing institutional systems. Long-term sustainability will be accomplished through a combination of Medicare GME funding and institutional and state support.
