Sunday, May 18, 2025
5/18/2025
Value-Based Medical Student Education Training Program - The purpose of this proposal is to increase the number of primary care physicians in Arizona through targeted interventions. These include developing primary care tracks, offering scholarships, expanding high-quality primary care clinical experiences, and strategically enhancing curricula. Arizona is experiencing a significant primary care provider shortage that worsens each year due to rapid population growth. This results in rural communities and vulnerable populations having poor access to healthcare. These diverse populations with unmet needs include Tribal Nations, border towns, and frontier/rural communities. The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix (COM-P) currently trains 120 students per year in a model that includes community partners in clinical training, with about half in urban/traditional settings and half distributed across community partner sites. The distributed clinical experiences include diverse opportunities in rural, Tribal, and high-need communities. The current curriculum includes traditional one-month rotations, block rotations, and a longitudinal integrated clerkship (LIC) curriculum. These rotations are valuable experiences that can be leveraged in the proposed work plan. To build on current successes and achieve program objectives, a work plan was developed with the following aims: 1. Create primary care and rural admissions tracks, targeting medical students with a high likelihood of practicing primary care in Tribal, rural, and/or medically underserved communities. 2. Expand Tribal, rural, and community health center-based clinical experiences, including the expansion of the LIC curriculum. 3. Enhance the clinical curriculum by: 1. Improving student experiences through faculty development, student coordination, technology, teaching resources, and health equity curriculum. 2. Implementing a three-year medical school progression. 3. Creating combined undergraduate and graduate medical education sites for primary care track medical students who want to stay in communities and progress from medical school through residency training. 4. Increase the number of medical students entering primary care residency in Arizona by better understanding and responding to key drivers, including student admissions, primary care scholarships, compelling clinical experiences, and student advising. The COM-Phoenix rural health and primary care team has developed innovative curricula for over ten years, but it has not been enough to change the severe primary care shortages in Arizona, which disproportionately impact vulnerable communities in the state. There is an opportunity to implement evidence-based strategies that will improve the current trajectory. The team is prepared to implement a thoughtful and innovative work plan that builds on current strengths. We believe that we meet both priority designations, as the State of Arizona has more than two federally designated tribes and the COM-P has public-private partnerships in place.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).