Secretary Sebelius Makes Recovery Act Funding Available to Expand Health
Professions Training
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced the availability of $200
million to support grants, loans, loan repayment, and scholarships to expand the
training of health care professionals. The funds are expected to train
approximately 8,000 students and credentialed health professionals by the end of
fiscal year 2010.
Today’s funds are part of the $500 million allotted to HHS’ Health Resources
and Services Administration (HRSA), to address workforce shortages under the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
“Health care reform cannot happen without an adequate supply of well-trained,
well-distributed providers,” said Secretary Sebelius. “These ARRA funds provide
targeted investments in primary care, nursing, faculty development, and
equipment purchases that will shore up the workforce as we prepare for
reform.”
“Our health professions programs have been significantly underfunded these
past few years,” said Mary Wakefield, Ph.D., R.N., administrator of the Health
Resources and Services Administration. “These funds will help us begin to
rebuild the infrastructure that is so essential to producing the number of
skilled health professionals the Nation needs.”
The $200 million will be directed to the following program areas:
$80.2 million for scholarships, loans, and loan repayment awards to
students, health professionals, and faculty. Of those funds, $39 million will
be targeted to nurses and nurse faculty, $40 million to disadvantaged students
in a wide range of health professions, and $1.2 million to health professions
faculty from disadvantaged backgrounds.
$50 million in grants to health professions training programs. Funds will
be used to purchase equipment needed to expand programs and improve the quality
of training.
$47.6 million to support primary care training programs. These funds will
support the training of residents, medical students, physician assistants,
dentists and individuals, many of whom will practice in underserved areas.
$10.5 million to strengthen the public health workforce. Funds will support
public health traineeships and increase the number of individuals trained
through preventive medicine and dental public health residencies.
$10.2 million to increase the diversity of the health professions workforce.
And $1.5 million to support the efforts of state professional licensing
boards in reducing barrier to telemedicine.
HRSA is using a competitive process to award all funds. Some awards will be
made over the next several months. In addition, funding opportunities for some
programs will be announced over the next several months, giving applicants
adequate time to prepare materials.
The remaining $300 million in ARRA workforce funds is being used to expand
HRSA’s National Health Service Corps, which provides scholarships and loan
repayment for primary care providers who serve in health professional shortage
areas. In addition, HRSA received $2 billion through ARRA to expand health care
services to low-income and uninsured individuals through its health center
program.
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Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are
available at
http://www.hhs.gov/news.
Last revised: July 30, 2009
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