HRSA’s Health Profession Education and Training (HP-ET) Initiative
In an effort to address primary care workforce shortages, HRSA has prioritized providing supportive training and technical assistance for community health centers with the goal of enhancing their capacities to recruit, develop, and retain their workforce by exposing health and allied professions students, trainees, and residents to educational training programs within health centers.
HP-ET Initiative activities include:
- Health center completion of the Readiness to Train Assessment Tool (RTAT)
- Provide targeted T/TA on the RTAT, HP-ET workforce planning, address barriers in implementation of HP-ET
- Establish and facilitate strategic partnerships with educational institutions and workforce stakeholders
- Promote best practice or evidence-based models in HP-ET
Readiness to Train Assessment Tool (RTAT)
As a first step in HRSA’s HP-ET Initiative, the Readiness to Train Assessment Tool was distributed in the fall of 2020 to community health centers across the country.
The purpose of the survey was to assess the dimensions of health center readiness and capacity for engaging in Health Professions Training. The RTAT uses the following definition of organizational readiness: ‘the degree to which health centers are motivated and capable to engage with and implement a health professions training program’. The graphic below shows the 7 subscales that were assessed.
Click here for an info sheet about the RTAT. If you have questions about RTAT and your CHC’s results of the survey, please reach out to Emily Ferry (eferry@mepca.org.)
HP-ET Resources:
- Click here to learn about HP-ET programs that exist in CHCs across the country
- Education Health Center Guide by the Northwest Primary Care Association & Community Health Association of Mountain/Plains States
- Maine Area Health Education Center (AHEC)
- Southern New Hampshire Area Health Education Center (AHEC): Preceptor Development Resources