Primary Care Training and Enhancement -- Residency Training in Street Medicine - This project, entitled Northeast Pennsylvania Community Continuum of Care (NEPA CCC), will increase the number of physicians trained in Internal Medicine to be prepared to provide care for people experiencing homelessness, by bringing care to people outside of traditional care settings. Individuals facing homelessness suffer a disproportionate burden of illness from living in the most severe conditions of poverty. To address these needs in rural and urban areas, The Wright Center’s Street Medicine Team, in collaboration with community partners, will work together to provide essential services aimed at alleviating homelessness. Effective medical and social interventions are crucial for both the prevention and treatment of disease. The Street Medicine program will take primary care to the streets, deliver care through a mobile health clinic in rural and urban locations, partner with drug and alcohol agencies, and provide services at the busiest homeless shelters and related community based organizations in the counties served, providing treatment for acute and chronic conditions, medication dispensing, survival supplies, drug and alcohol counseling and treatment, basic treatment of mental illness, and hospital consultation with continuity of care post-discharge. The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education’s (TWCGME) strategically designed and community-based residency prepares its graduates to lead primary care practices in the future. This Primary Care Training and Enhancement project will employ the curricular innovation capacity and community outreach skills of TWCGME to ensure consistent and cost-effective delivery of a challenging and satisfying local training experience in Street Medicine. The proposed objectives, activities, and assessments have been designed to maintain fidelity with national goals of service to the underserved to yield an increased number of providers who are personally and professionally satisfied in their critical roles and well-prepared to serve patients experiencing homelessness. Clinicians caring for patients experiencing homelessness must understand the implications and challenges related to the social and environmental impact on the diagnosis, treatment, and continuing management of patients. The curriculum for this project will be developed to prepare physician-trainees to provide more empathetic, interprofessional, patient-centered, whole-person primary care for people experiencing homelessness. Over the duration of the grant period, TWCGME will train 20 residents each year to provide care to this vulnerable population. The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education (TWCGME) is an anchor member of a Graduate Medical Education Safety-Net Consortium (GME-SNC) serving as the independent Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited resident and fellow physicians in a safety-net health services network of Essential Community Providers. TWCGME's GME-SNC engages numerous partnering organizations in its governance and the training of its residents and fellows. These partners include TWCGME's primary affiliated Federally Qualified Health Center Look-Alike, The Wright Center for Community Health that serves nearly 35,000 patients throughout Northeast Pennsylvania. The Northeast Pennsylvania Community Continuum of Care (NEPA CCC) project requests consideration for the rural funding priority and the >50% working in MUC funding preference.
