Primary Care News

Funding to support primary care residents in rural and underserved communities

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), announced the availability of $19.2 million in American Rescue Plan funding to support and expand community-based primary care residency programs. Awardees will use this funding to train residents to provide quality care to diverse populations and communities, particularly in underserved and rural areas.

The Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education (THCGME) program supports training in community-based care settings. These training sites offer primary care and dental residents experience working with diverse, high-need patient communities in areas that often lack sufficient primary care physicians and dentists, according to a release. After completing residencies, the majority of THCGME program graduates will continue to practice in underserved or rural settings and two-thirds continue to practice primary care – nearly double the average of all medical and dental graduates.

“Training physician and dental residents in community settings is helping us to build a stronger primary care workforce that better supports the communities served,” said HRSA Administrator Carole Johnson. “The American Rescue Plan funding announced will help us to grow the number of primary care residents training and practicing in underserved communities, a critical step toward expanding access to high-quality health care and advancing health equity.”

This THCGME funding opportunity will increase the program’s reach and support the equivalent of approximately 120 full-time resident positions. Teaching Health Center primary care residency programs offer training in skills needed to care for populations such as members of tribal communities, residents of rural areas, and people who are medically underserved.

Walmart, Health at Scale launch customized provider recommendations for plan participants

Health at Scale announced a collaboration with Walmart to provide personalized provider recommendations to Walmart associates and their families who work in locations where Health at Scale is offered and are enrolled in the company’s health plan. This technology will be incorporated into Walmart’s health plan administrator’s search engine and virtual care referrals for associates in select geographies, making it easier for plan participants to find providers that match to their unique health needs and care history, according to a release. Through this initiative, Walmart and Health at Scale will establish a more personalized healthcare experience that focuses on the needs of each individual in the moment and leverages industry-leading machine intelligence to identify providers who have successfully treated patients with similar characteristics and care needs.

“Finding the right provider is one of the most important health decisions a patient makes. It is also one of the hardest. What we really need to optimize is the patientprovider match,” said Health at Scale CEO Zeeshan Syed. “We’re delighted to work with Walmart as the leader in employer health and benefits innovation and provide Walmart associates and their families in certain locations with smart, hyper-personalized provider matches that reflect a deep understanding and respect for their individual health needs.”

Health at Scale said its Precision Navigation™ goes beyond non-personalized process-based star ratings, reputation rankings, and volume-based metrics and instead uses AI and machine learning to model variations in provider outcomes across thousands of health factors. The service covers 25 different specialties as well as 34 procedures and imaging.