HHS announces $1,499,990 in grants to develop rural OR residency programs
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced on Thursday that two Oregon organizations will receive a total of $1,499,990 in grant funding as part of the Rural Residency Planning and Development Program (RRPD).
Oregon’s two recipients are Mercy Foundation in Roseburg, and Samaritan Pacific Health Services in Newport. The two organizations will each receive about $750,000 over three years to develop new rural residency programs. The funding comes as part of $20 million awarded to 21 different states by HHS.
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RRPD is a program aimed at creating new rural residency programs in family medicine, internal medicine, and psychiatry, and supporting the expansion of the physician workforce in rural areas. Recipients of the awards across the entire county include hospitals, community health centers, tribal organizations, and schools of medicine.
The program is administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and is one of a series of health care workforce programs in their Bureau of Health Workforce.
“The health challenges in rural America are clear: rural communities face a greater risk of poor health outcomes than their urban counterparts,” said HRSA Administrator George Sigounas, MS, Ph.D., in a press release. “Programs like the Rural Residency Planning and Development grants take aim at one of the most persistent disparities: access to high quality healthcare providers. HRSA is committed to increasing the number of providers serving rural communities and improving health in rural America.”
