September 29, 2010: $2.4 Million to Expand Primary Care Workforce in San Antonio PDF Print E-mail

$2.4 Million to Expand Primary Care Workforce in San Antonio

Washington, D.C. – Yesterday, HHS announced $320 million in grants under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to strengthen the health care workforce, including over $2.4 million benefitting San Antonio.  These grants will go to improve and expand the primary care workforce under the Prevention and Public Health Fund of the Affordable Care Act.

“Anyone who has been to a hospital knows how valuable nurses are to both patients and physicians,” said Congressman Charles A. Gonzalez (TX-20).  “It is essential that we invest in the training and hiring of nurses and other primary care givers, especially in underserved areas, so that we can continue to strengthen our healthcare workforce and provide better care.”

Grants Awarded to San Antonio:

University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

$1,425,600.00 - Advanced Nursing Education Expansion (ANEE)

The ANEE program will provide $31 million in funds to 26 schools of nursing to increase full-time enrollment in primary care nurse practitioner (NP) and nurse midwife (NMW) programs.  It is projected that over 1,300 primary care nursing stipends will be supported through this 5-year program.  By providing a stipend of $22,000 per student per year for up to 2 years, this funding aims to reduce the financial burden of attending school full-time and to accelerate graduation rates to increase the number of advanced practice nurses. Grantees project that 600 NPs and NMWs in total will be fully trained by 2015.

Alamo Community College District San Antonio

$1,031,004.53 - Nurse Managed Health Clinics (NMHC)

This program will fund 10 grantees for 3 years to operate NMHCs to provide primary care.  A NMHC is a nurse-practice arrangement, managed by advanced practice nurses, that provides primary care or wellness services to underserved or vulnerable populations and that is associated with a school, college, university or department of nursing, federally qualified health center, or independent nonprofit health or social services agency. Clinics serve as valuable clinical training sites for students in primary care, and also enhance nursing practice by increasing the number of clinical teaching sites for interdisciplinary primary and community health students. Funding will provide access to primary care for approximately 94,000 patients and training for more than 900 advanced practice nurses.

 

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