The San Joaquin Valley Health Consortium

Federal Model AHEC

California's rural San Joaquin Valley Area Health Education Center was one of the first of 11 AHECs funded nationally. Other sites were phased in over the next several years and the Statewide California AHEC system was funded from 1979-1988. It enjoyed a multitude of successes in health professions education with many of these programs continuing today. Model AHEC funding began in 1993 and the legacy of program development that leads to improved health care access, particularly for the underserved, continues.

Highlights 1994-1997

The program's progress to date includes the development of a model program that rotates a cohort of eight to twelve 3rd-year University California of San Francisco medical students each year for a six-month time block to Fresno, California, where they are paired with rural community providers for outpatient training and mentoring, while also doing their required inpatient rotations. This program was federally funded for two years and is now a permanent part of the UCSF School of Medicine's curricula. The program has also developed Family Practice residency and Physicians Assistants/Family Nurse Practitioners training programs in community health centers along with faculty development and have found distance learning opportunities for rural career nurse ladder programs. The program has also implemented a number of continuing education programs in nursing, dentistry and medicine.

Current Program 1998-2001

The University of California has decided to make the Area Health Education Center Program an important part of its strategy to increase the ratio of primary care-to-speciality training. It has streamlined the organizational structure of the AHEC to avoid diffusing scarce state and federal funds. University of California San Francisco is the lead campus with seven other affiliated schools of medicine partnering with community based organizations to form 10 AHEC Centers. Currently, only eight are seeking Federal Model dollars. Guidance to the program is given by a Statewide Program Advisory Committee which is comprised of representatives of all Centers, medical and osteopathic schools, consumers, providers and related agencies.

Because California is such a diverse state and because of the changing health care arena, there are a number of health care challenges that this program must address. These include efforts to better serve the needs of the medically underserved population through a series of projects. They include efforts to expand access to health care by decreasing health professional shortages in minority communities; working towards proportionate minority representation in health care professions; and improving the cultural competency of health care professionals. The program is also attempting to address the complex and educationally challenging issues resulting from managed care. Several programs plan to develop strategies to train their students to be proficient working within these new challenges.

Another focus is the utilization of the latest telemedicine and teleducation technologies including interactive course presentations, on-line conferences and video streaming to make health professions education more accessible to all students. Off-campus delivery of health care education and training which includes the best from several institutions, in terms of curricula and faculty contact, is proposed. There is also a plan to develop an agreed upon process for institutional boundaries and distance.

The San Joaquin Valley Health Consortium was founded in 1972. Our mission throughout the San Joaquin Valley is to improve healthcare. This is done by taking a proactive role to identify needs, acquire resources, coordinate the use of resources, disseminate information, promote health education and respond to health opportunities.
(Learn more about health in the valley...)

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