America's First Family Nurse Practitioner Residency Training Program
Background
- In 2007, the Community Health Center, Inc., headquartered in Middletown, CT launched the first-in-the-nation formal Nurse Practitioner Residency Training Program, to support the transition from new NP to primary care provider.
- The goal: to provide new nurse practitioners with a depth, breadth, volume, and intensity of clinical training necessary to serve as primary care providers in the complex setting of the country's FQHCs.
- The 2015-2016 class is the 10th class accepted into the program. Our residents have come from: Alabama, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Washington D.C., United Kingdom, and Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Where are they now?
CHCI's 36 alumni are practicing as primary care providers in FQHCs and other safety net settings in FQHCs in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, Washington D.C., Tenessee, Texas, and Vermont.
Qualifications
Candidates: recent graduates of Masters or DNP programs, certified, or board eligible as FNP, bilingual preferred, with a stated commitment to practice career as a PCP in safety net setting.
Structure
- 12 months, full-time salaried position.
- Precepted Clinics: residents develop their own patient panel while having a CHCI provider (MD or APRN) exclusively assigned during precepted sessions.
- Specialty Rotations: Ten rotations in areas of high volume and clinical complexity, most commonly encountered in FQHCs.
- Didactic Sessions: Scheduled learning sessions on a variety of complex, clinical challenges commonly encountered in FQHCs.
- Continuous training to CHCI model of high performance health system: advanced access, chronic care model, planned care, team-based, prevention focused, expert use of electronic technology and data.
- Clear learning objectives and evaluation plan.
Future
- Goal is national replication of CHCI's model of FQHC/NMHC based residency training for nurse practitioners.
- Organizations from 45 states have sought CHCI consultation for initiating a Nurse Practitioner Residency Training Program.
- Amendment 5316 in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act authorizes the creation of a 3-year demonstration project that will replicate Community Health Center, Inc.'s residency training program for family nurse practitioners in FQHCs and NMHCs.
- CHCI organized and leads the "National Nurse Practitioner Residency Training Consortium" which grew out of collaborative efforts among the early Nurse Practitioner Residency programs across the country to advance the work of establishing and supporting these programs nationally. The Consortium explores sustainable funding strategies, and develops standards leading to a future accreditation programs.
- IOM's 2014 "GME Governance and Financing Report" includes recommendations to finance initiatives to develop and evaluate innovative GME programs through a "Transformation Fund," including models that consider the advanced training of APRNs.
