This notice announces the opportunity to apply for funding under the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Rural Residency Planning and Development Technical Assistance (RRPD-TA) Program. The purpose of this cooperative agreement is to provide technical assistance (TA) to HRSA’s Rural Residency Planning and Development (RRPD) Program award recipients to support the creation of new rural residency programs that will expand the rural physician workforce. The RRPD-TA award recipient will provide TA, tools and resources to current and future RRPD Program award recipients to help overcome significant challenges and barriers involved in developing new rural residency programs. The priority for TA will be RRPD Program award recipients. However, limited TA resources may be publicly available for other entities interested in developing new rural residency programs.
For the purposes of this notice of funding opportunity, rural residencies are allopathic and osteopathic physician residency programs in specialties as determined by HRSA that primarily train residents in rural clinical settings and focus on producing physicians who will practice in rural communities. Rural residencies may be rurally located or integrated with a separately accredited program within a larger, urban residency program, also known as a rural training track (RTT).
In FY 2018, HRSA funded a three-year cooperative agreement (HRSA-18-117) to establish a RRPD-TA center to identify and share resources with RRPD applicants and support RRPD Program award recipients. Thereafter, HRSA funded 27 (HRSA-19-088) organizations in FY 2019, up to $750,000 per award, for a three-year period of performance to develop new, accredited, and sustainable rural residency programs. An additional 11 organizations were awarded funding in FY 2020 (HRSA-20-107) to develop rural residency programs in family medicine, internal medicine, psychiatry, obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), general surgery, and public health and general preventive medicine (hereafter referred to as “preventive medicine”). RRPD Program award recipients may use their funding for recruiting residency program directors, faculty/staff development, accreditation, resident recruitment, and developing graduate tracking systems.
Program Objectives
• Promote the rural residency-to-rural workforce pipeline by supporting the development of new rural residency programs in family medicine, internal medicine, psychiatry, OB/GYN, general surgery, preventive medicine, and other specialties as determined by HRSA in future NOFOs. TA provided may include assistance in curriculum development, faculty recruitment and development, clinical and community partnerships, and program administration;
• Support RRPD Program award recipients’ efforts to establish and maintain new rural residency programs and achieve program accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME);
• Assist with identifying, qualifying for, and securing (as applicable) Medicare graduate medical education (GME) funding and/or other sustainable pathways of funding rural residencies such as Medicaid, state, or private funding;
• Identify, track, analyze, and translate key policy, regulatory, and programmatic issues to inform RRPD Program award recipients and other rural stakeholders about changes, knowledge gaps, or other challenges impacting rural residency programs and rural GME funding;
• Analyze overall impact of the RRPD-TA and RRPD Program activities and funding on rural communities (e.g., rural physician workforce) in consultation with HRSA; and
• Promote rural residency training to medical students.
