BILL REQ. #:  S-1048.1 

Read first time 01/30/09.   Referred to Committee on Health & Long-Term Care.

     AN ACT Relating to addressing the shortage of health care professionals in underserved areas; and creating new sections.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 1   (1) The legislature finds that the shortage of health care professionals practicing in rural and medically underserved areas of the state has created a severe public health and safety problem. If unaddressed, this problem is expected to worsen with health care reform because an increased demand for primary care services will contribute to these shortages.
     (2) The legislature further finds that the medical training programs at universities within Washington state are important and well-respected resources to the people of the state in the training of health care professionals. Currently, only a small proportion of medical school and other health professional graduates are Washington residents who serve in certain parts of this state.

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 2   The department of health, in concert with a medical school located in central Washington, shall prepare a health professional shortage plan that accomplishes the following:
     (1) Identifies specific activities that the university shall pursue to partner with existing health care professional programs specifically situated in eastern Washington to increase the number of Washington residents serving as health care professionals in rural and medically underserved areas of the state, including establishing a goal that assures that no less than fifty percent of health care professionals who enter these programs are Washington state residents at the time of matriculation and will be willing to serve, to the extent possible, in Washington state rural and underserved communities.
     (2) Establishes the goal of assuring that by the year 2013 the annual number of graduates entering rural or medically underserved practice shall be increased by forty percent over a baseline period from 2004 through 2009.
     (3) Establishes an additional goal of making operational by 2011 at least two additional primary care programs and one emergency medicine residency program within Washington state in geographic areas identified by the plan as underserved. The geographic areas identified by the plan as being underserved by primary care physicians shall be consistent with any such similar designations made in the health personnel research plan previously authorized by the legislature.
     (4) Establishes, with the cooperation of existing community and migrant health clinics in rural or medically underserved areas of the state, three primary care residency training tracks. Furthermore, the primary care shortage plan shall provide that these training tracks shall be a joint American osteopathic association and American medical association approved training site, coordinated with an accredited college of osteopathic medicine established within the state of Washington with oversight by the higher education coordinating board for the purpose of training primary care physicians for the state of Washington. Such a proposed joint accredited training track will have at least fifty percent of its residency positions in osteopathic medicine.
     (5) Implements the plan, to include the expansion of the primary care and emergency medicine residency network, with appropriations for the department of health.
     (6) The plan shall be submitted to the appropriate committees of the legislature no later than December 1, 2009.