Byline: CATHY WOODRUFF Staff writer
The search is on for a plan to encourage more doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists and other health care providers to work in upstate rural and inner-city areas where residents now find their services scarce.
Albany Medical Center Hospital's Department of Family and Community Medicine is seeking proposals from candidates to establish a new ``Area Health Education Center'' (AHEC) serving a 10-county region of eastern New York.
The center refers more to a centrally coordinated network of programs, services and incentives than to a physical site. This one would be the state's second. The first of the federally funded initiatives was established in western New York under the leadership of the University of Buffalo.
``It's not a bricks-and-mortar proposition as much as a set of contractual funding relationships to advance the goals of the program,'' said Steven Schreiber, director of the local AHEC program. ``The target is to try to produce the right numbers of the right kinds of people who can serve these communities.''
The AHEC would conduct a patchwork of activities within three broad categories: developing clinical training sites; recruiting students to pursue health care careers; and supporting the work of current health care professions, said Schreiber and Dr. David J. Mersy, chairman of the Family and Community Medicine Department.
``It can run a gamut of different activities,'' even finding housing for students in remote areas or providing transportation to classes or clinics, Schreiber said.
``We know from experience that when students come from these communities or work in them during their training, they are more likely to practice in them later,'' Mersy said.
Proposals could come from hospitals, community health centers or other sources, but the eventual operator is likely to be an independent entity formed by a coalition of founders, Schreiber said.
An initial $700,000 state and federal grant was provided to launch the AHEC program in eastern New York, with more funding promised to support the program through 2010.
The 10 counties to be served by the new AHEC are: Albany, Schenectady, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Fulton, Montgomery, Warren, Washington, Hamilton and Essex.
