§294d Quentin N. Burdick Program for Rural Interdisciplinary Training

Summary

The Secretary can give grants or contracts to pay for interdisciplinary training projects that help rural health care. Grant money must be used for five main goals: train health workers for rural areas using new or proven methods, test and measure new team-based care models that save money, deliver health services to people who live in rural places, boost research on rural health problems, and help recruit and keep health workers from or willing to work in rural areas. Recipients can use the money for things like student stipends, post‑doctoral fellowships, teaching faculty about rural care problems, and buying or renting transport or telecom equipment when the rural need is shown. No more than 10 percent of a grant can pay administrative costs, and no more than 10 percent of the trainees funded can be trained as doctors of medicine or osteopathy. Grants must add to an institution’s prior funding for these activities, not replace the money the institution used the year before. Applications must be sent by at least two eligible partners working together to create long-term ties between academic programs and rural providers. Applicants must name a rural health care site for clinical work or training, such as hospitals, community or migrant health centers, rural clinics, behavioral health centers, long-term care facilities, Native Hawaiian centers, or Indian Health Service or tribal facilities. For this program, “rural” means areas located outside standard metropolitan statistical areas.