Making good on a promise to fortify the primary care workforce, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is awarding $320 million in ACA funds, $167.3 million of which will expand primary care residency programs.
"With these grants, Americans from all backgrounds will have new opportunities to enter the healthcare workforce," Sebelius said in a statement.
The primary residency expansion will fund 82 accredited training programs with five-year grants to increase training in general pediatrics, general internal medicine, and family medicine. The grantees will help new enrollees in three-year primary care residency training, which by 2015 will support training for 889 new primary care residents above the number currently being trained.
Another $67 million will be awarded in Health Profession Opportunity Grants to help low-income individuals train for careers in healthcare. It will provide 32 grants in 23 states for training to be home care aides, certified nursing assistants, medical assistants, pharmacy technicians, emergency medical technicians, licensed vocational nurses, registered nurses, dental assistants, and health information technicians.
An additional $30.1 million will expand physician assistant training with 28 primary care physician assistant training programs for five years. The students will receive $22,000 each per year for two years. More than 700 physician assistants will receive funding with more than 600 expected to be fully trained by 2015.
The advanced nursing education expansion program will receive $31 million for 26 schools of nursing for nurse practitioner and nurse midwife programs. The effort is expected to award more than 1,300 primary care nursing stipends during the five-year program. The expansion should add 600 nurse practitioners and nurse midwifes to the workforce by 2015.
Another $14.8 million will fund 10 grantees for three years to operate 10 nurse managed health clinics, nurse-practitioner arrangements managed by advanced practice nurses to provide primary care and wellness services to underserved and vulnerable populations. These clinics are associated with a school, college, university or department of nursing or federally qualified health center or independent non-profit health or social services agency.
Twenty-six state health workforce development programs will receive $5.6 million, with each state limited to a one-year, $150,000 amount plus 15% matching funds.
The idea is that the money will be used for planning, gathering and analyzing data, current resources, policies and practices and to remove barriers that limit primary care opportunities at state and local levels. "These activities are expected to result in a 10-25% increase in the primary care health workforce over a 10-year-period."
Personal and home care aide training will receive $4.2 million to expand the number of people who provide paid hands-on long-term care and personal assistance to the elderly, or people living with disabilities and other chronic conditions.
This area is expected to be the fourth fastest growing direct care occupation in the U.S. between 2008 and 2018. This is a demonstration project that supports states in developing a uniform competency curriculum to train qualified personal and home health aides. About 5,100 personal and home care aides will be trained by 2013.