Teaching Health Center (THC) Graduate Medical Education (GME) Payment Program - Name of Graduate Medical Training Program: Sollus Northwest Family Medicine Residency Discipline of the Residency Training Program: Family Medicine Application Type: Expansion Eligible Entity Type: Federally Qualified Health Center Year Program First Began Training Residents: 2013 Organization Website: www.yvfwc.org The Sollus Northwest Family Medicine Residency (SNFMR), accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), was the first medical residency program established in the lower Yakima Valley of southcentral Washington. The program is affiliated with the Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences in Yakima, Washington, and the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. SNFMR is sponsored by Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic (YVFWC), a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) corporately located in Toppenish, Washington, that provides comprehensive, primary, preventive, enabling and additional health services to underserved communities. The SNFMR program has osteopathic recognition and is operated by YVFWC alone out of its Grandview Medical-Dental Center, a community-based ambulatory patient care center in Grandview, Washington. SNFMR has been preparing medical residents to practice as primary care physicians in such areas since 2013. As a completely rural-based program, the SNFMR’s goal is to enhance access to training and education programs in a rural area to ultimately produce high-quality primary care physicians that continue their work in underserved communities. The clinical training sites represent a variety of health care specialties to give residents the opportunity to work in both urban and rural settings, including those that provide inter-professional, team-based care. The community-based patient care sites that will host the residency program exhibit characteristics that align directly with the purpose of this project. SNFMR has current established agreements with four hospitals, four specialty care organizations, and five YVFWC medical sites. All hospital sites where residents will perform rotations have provided resident training in prior academic years. All rotation sites are in either Benton County or Yakima County, a region with limited health care resources and patients who face a variety of poor social determinants of health. The patient population varies by site but can be broadly defined as underrepresented and underserved, as patients are more like to be minority, low-income, and uninsured, all key social determinants of health. SNFMR is requesting two funding priorities through this application as the main community-based ambulatory patient care center training site is located in a qualifying HPSA and serves a medically underserved community. SNFMR trains 12 total residents, of which 10 are currently supported by teaching health center funds; the two FTE positions that are not supported by teaching health center funds are being supported directly by the sponsoring institution. With this expansion funding, SNFMR will be able to support all 12 residents through HRSA’s THCGME Program. SNFMR aims to improve the workforce and improve the health of its community by alleviating provider shortages in rural areas through the expansion of its existing rural-based family medicine residency program. The total resident FTE positions requested to be funded under this program for all post-graduate years of training is 6 (2-2-2) resident FTEs above the baseline resident FTEs trained by the program in the prior academic year (AY). The resident FTE positions requested to be funded under this program for the first academic year of funding (AY 2025-2026) is 2 (2-0-0).
