Recognizing the care inequities and the changing needs of rural America, the Council on Graduate Medical Education (COGME) provides this report and recommendations to strengthen rural health workforce training and improve access to health care through evidence-based, patient- and community-centered health workforce investments spanning education, training, and practice.
To address the crisis in access to care for rural populations and develop a health professional education system that increases rural health workforce capacity, COGME developed a series of three issue briefs on the rural health workforce, each with its own set of recommendations.
From these briefs, COGME calls on Congress and the Department of Health & Human Services to prioritize the following six (6) recommendations:
- Federal funding for a comprehensive assessment of rural health needs to identify gaps in essential care.
- Federal training investments should follow the National Academy of Medicine recommendation to link GME funding to population health needs.
- Direct the HHS Secretary to develop a set of measures that ensure value and return on public investment in GME financing with a focus on rural areas
- HHS should invest in sustainable solutions that focus on building a stable healthcare workforce in rural communities
- Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services work with the Health Resources and Services Administration and other agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services to identify and eliminate regulatory and financial barriers and create incentives to health professional education, training expansion and innovation that promote rural population health
- CMS should support and test sustainable alternative payment models (APMs) that enhance the delivery of team-based interprofessional education and practice
Southwest Virginia Graduate Medical Education Consortium 