§1616l Community Health Aide Program

Summary

The Secretary, through the Service, must create and run a Community Health Aide Program in Alaska to train Alaska Natives as health aides and community health practitioners, use them to provide care, prevention, and health promotion in rural villages, and equip village clinics with teleconferencing for those workers. The Program must give high-quality training with accredited trainers and a curriculum that mixes classroom learning with supervised hands-on work, including emergency and acute care, prevention, and managing clinic supplies and pharmacies. A Certification Board must certify trainees or accept equivalent experience. The Program must provide continuing education, close supervision, and regular review of the aides’ work to keep care safe and effective. Dental health aide therapists may only do pulpal therapy (not pulpotomies on baby teeth) or adult tooth extractions after consulting a licensed dentist who says it is a medical emergency; they are otherwise banned from oral or jaw surgery, though uncomplicated extractions are allowed. A neutral panel of experts, including Alaska Natives, must study and report on dental therapist services, their quality, training needs, and possible alternatives, and consult tribal organizations. The Secretary may expand a similar program nationwide but must not cut Alaska’s funding and must generally exclude dental therapist services unless an Indian tribe in another State where those services are legal elects them; the Service cannot replace a certified dentist with a dental health aide therapist. The law does not stop tribes or the Service from using other federal health programs.