[Federal Register Volume 62, Number 229 (Friday, November 28, 1997)]
[Notices]
[Pages 63354-63356]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 97-31224]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Health Resources and Services Administration
Final Program Requirements and Review Criteria for a Cooperative
Agreement for a Center for Health Workforce Distribution Studies: A
Federal-State Partnership Cooperative Agreement Program for Fiscal Year
1997
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) announces
that applications will be accepted for a fiscal year (FY) 1997
Cooperative Agreement for a Center for Health Workforce Distribution
Studies: A Federal-State Partnership Cooperative Agreement Program. The
cooperative agreement will be funded under the authority of section 792
(42 USC 295k) of the Public Health Service Act, which authorizes
research on health professions personnel.
Research and studies for this cooperative agreement program will
focus on the workforce distributional aspects of the legislation at the
state (one or a few states) level for allied health personnel,
dentists, nurses, physicians, and public health personnel as specified
below.
Purpose
The purpose of this cooperative agreement for a Center for Health
Workforce Distribution Studies is to support research and analysis at
the State level for one State or a few States only, including issues
regarding the impact of federal initiatives aimed at improving the
training of health professionals and meeting national workforce goals
pertaining to:
(1) Allied health data and distributional issues consistent with
the (1995) recommendations of the National Commission on Allied Health
and in close coordination with the activities of the Allied Health Data
Collaborative Project;
(2) Distribution of dentists, with emphasis on trends relating to
educational background (for example, those with postdoctoral training
in advanced general dentistry and/or public health dentistry) and
practice in settings principally serving residents of medically-
underserved communities;
[[Page 63355]]
(3) The designation of nursing shortage areas at the State level
and, through a pilot exploration of a model approach, build a
methodologic bridge to other states for applicability across the
Nation;
(4) The distribution of physicians, with emphasis on underserved
areas and specialty services, including, for example OB/GYN, maternal
and child health, general surgery, emergency medicine, and mental
health; and addressing issues of substitution, using available tools
such as the HRSA/Bureau of Health Professions (BHPr) Integrated
Requirements Model (IRM), as applicable; and
(5) The establishment of collaboration(s) between schools of public
health and state and local public health agencies to assess public
health workforce supply and distribution and to develop educational
strategies to address imbalances; and to develop the nature of
workforce planning for public health personnel at the State level.
The cooperative agreement is to fund either the establishment and
the operation of a new research center, or the operation of an existing
research center, for the conduct of such research. The center must
conduct high-quality research and disseminate findings to colleagues
and policymakers at the institutional, Federal and State levels.
The successful applicant must have or establish the Center for
Health Workforce Distribution Studies as an identifiable entity. This
must be more than a set of discrete, investigator-initiated research
projects proposed in one application. The center must have a director,
a coherent, widely-recognized research agenda and researchers who
function as a team. The principal investigator must be an experienced
researcher who will be primarily responsible for the organization and
operation of the center and will provide research leadership. The
center's researchers must collectively possess multidisciplinary
skills, and have experience in health services research. There must be
sufficient core staff with significant time commitments to the center,
although the center will of necessity share common resources with other
components of the applicant institution, including technical, clerical,
and administrative personnel, and library and computer resources.
The cooperative agreement funds will be available to provide basic
support for the center, including: the development and implementation
of the center's research agenda, administrative and research staff
support, researcher time (although not necessarily 100% of researcher
time), and dissemination of center research products through articles
in peer-reviewed journals as well as center-sponsored publications.
This cooperative agreement must not be the sole source of support for
this type of enterprise. The applicant institution must demonstrate a
commitment (including a matching contribution--see ``Program
Requirements'' below) to support the organizational and management
structure of the center, and its investigators should seek other funds
for support of its research agenda.
Eligibility
Eligible applicants include public and non-profit private entities.
The applicant must bring together allied/dental/ medical/nursing/public
health schools and State agencies, must have experience in all five
component areas, the assessment and evaluation of unmet need/
underserved areas, and in issues of non-physician provider
substitution, and must have access to the allied and public health
workforce data base in the State. Development of a methodology for the
assessment of nursing shortage areas and of public health requirements
and supply in a State must involve a State agency.
A notice was published in the Federal Register at 62 FR 39532 on
July 23, 1997, proposing program requirements and review criteria for
this program. No comments were received within the 30 day comment
period. Therefore, the program requirements and review criteria remain
as proposed.
Final Program Requirements
The award recipient's institution must share in the cost of the
program as follows: For each year funds are awarded under this program,
the matching contribution shall be at least one-third of the amount of
the Federal award for that year. Up to 50% of the recipient's matching
contribution may be in the form of in-kind donations of faculty time,
staff time, use of computers or other shared resources.
Applicants are urged to submit applications that address specific
objectives of HRSA/BHPr. Health workforce surveillance reveals
significant gaps in the Nation's health workforce ability to meet the
population's needs. In some cases, these gaps are exacerbated by market
forces. The BHPr attempts to address these in its four health workforce
goals to improve the distribution, diversity, supply, and competence/
quality. Specifically:
Distribution: there has been little progress in reducing the number
of underserved areas, and access to generalist providers varies widely
across states and counties;
Diversity: few health professions reflect the diversity of the
Nation's population, also there is strong evidence that
underrepresented minority providers are more likely to serve vulnerable
populations;
Supply: shortages of some allied and public health providers
coincide with a surfeit of specialist physicians;
Competence: most training is hospital-based and ill-suited to
ambulatory health care delivery, which occurs in an increasingly
managed care environment and requires skills in providing cost-
effective quality care. Also, an aging population created an unmet need
for geriatric training.
Final Review Criteria
Applications for this cooperative agreement will be evaluated on
the basis of the following criteria:
(1) The qualifications and achievements of the proposed center's
principal investigator and senior researchers, including level of
productivity and quality of research in health workforce issues;
(2) Demonstration of an understanding of the particular subject
areas of health professions workforce research that are relevant to
Federal policies and evidence of ability to manage research in such
areas;
(3) The appropriateness of the time commitments of the principal
investigator and senior researchers;
(4) The strength of the applicant's plan to actively promote
dissemination of research findings to all health professionals involved
in health services research and to relevant national and state
policymakers;
(5) The appropriateness of the proposed budget;
(6) The planned level of commitment to the center from the
applicant institution, as evidenced by specific plans for the type of
financial support that will be offered, and for support of the
organizational structure of the center. Evidence of a prior
institutional commitment to generalizable research in health workforce
studies will also be sought;
(7) The past success and future potential of the proposed center's
researchers in receiving funding from other sources; and
(8) The likely effectiveness of the organizational and management
arrangements to operate the proposed center.
Additional Information
If additional programmatic information is needed, please contact:
[[Page 63356]]
Herbert Traxler, Ph.D., Office of Research and Planning, Bureau of
Health Professions, Health Resources and Services Administration,
Parklawn Building, Room 8-47, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, Maryland
20857, Telephone: (301) 443-6662 or 3148, FAX: (301) 443-8003, EMAIL:
htraxler@hrsa.dhhs.gov.
Dated: November 21, 1997.
Claude Earl Fox,
Acting Administrator.
[FR Doc. 97-31224 Filed 11-26-97; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4160-15-P
