Saturday, April 5, 2025
4/5/2025
Teaching Health Center Planning and Development Program - a. Eligible Entity Type: Federally Qualified Health Center, Thundermist Health Center, will operate the residency program alone. b. Project Director Contact Information: Paul George, MD, MHPE, Thundermist Health Center, 450 Clinton Street, Woonsocket, RI 02895, 401-767-4100, paulg@thundermisthealth.org c. Residency Type: Family Medicine d. Funding Preference Statement: Affiliation with Northern RI Area Health Education Center e. Population Target Area: City of Woonsocket, Rhode Island f. Funding Amount Requested: $500,000 g. Projected Number of Resident Positions in Newly Established Program: 12 h. Expected ACGME Accreditation Date: 4/1/2024 - Residency Matriculation Date: 6/16/2025 Thundermist Health Center (THC) will address shortages of primary care physicians and challenges faced by the underserved community of Woonsocket, RI through the establishment of a new, accredited community-based family medicine residency program (FMRP). The Health Resources and Services Administration designates Woonsocket as a low-income population Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) for primary care. The new residency program will increase access to primary care services in Woonsocket and address the community’s health care needs and disparities. The overall goal of this project is to establish a new community-based residency program accredited by the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education. THC seeks to collaborate with Landmark Medical Center to address these needs through the establishment of a primary care medical residency that trains physicians to care for the community with specialized training to address the complex medical needs of the patient population. The final outcome will be training primary care residents to deliver care to the residents of Woonsocket, an underserved community with complex medical needs. The University of Wisconsin County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program reports Providence County, the county in which Woonsocket is located, has one primary care physician per 1,010 residents compared to the RI average of one PCP per 990 Rhode Islanders. Landmark Medical Center spoke to 35 key informants from Providence County in 2019 to inform their community health needs assessment. These key informants spoke to the physician shortages and need for additional primary care services in Providence County and Woonsocket. THC is a federally qualified health center serving the communities of Woonsocket, West Warwick, and Wakefield (all in Rhode Island). Thundermist’s delivery model includes providing a full range of primary health care services, including medical; dental; behavioral health (including basic substance use counseling and prescribing); pharmacy; enabling, including outreach and enrollment; health education; and other services to pregnant people, children, adults, and seniors from local target populations in identified target areas. THC currently serves 52,208 patients per year across its three sites and is on pace to exceed 55,000 in 2022. THC cares for one out of every 20 Rhode Islanders. THC recognizes that many of the health challenges that face our patients and impede our providers’ ability to care for patients are health disparities created by social determinants of health, such as safe housing, healthy food access, transportation, etc. Thus, THC offers many enabling services. For the last decade, THC modeled itself as a Teaching Health Center without HRSA teaching health center financial support. THC works with a broad array of community partners to operate training programs including residencies, fellowships, and other clinical academic partnerships to ensure development of the healthcare workforce. With exceptional experience in building health care education programs and nationally recognized education leaders, Thundermist is prepared to build on this strong foundation by becoming the first FQHC to be funded as a Teaching Health Center in Rhode Island and only the third in all New
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).