Health Professions

Health Professions and Nursing Education and Training Programs

Notes:
These data represent academic year programmatic outputs resulting from specific fiscal year funding.  Thus FY 2005 funding produced 07/01/2005 thru 06/30/2006 academic year results.  (Please note:  For the last several years, HRSA reported these health professions data in the fiscal year in which they were collected rather than the fiscal year for which the activities were funded.   An effort is being made this year to connect funds with performance.  Thus the data reported in the FY 2005- 2007 columns is different than what was reported in the FY 2009 Online Performance Appendix.  The academic year captures accurate performance as the students trained during the academic year are funded with funds from one fiscal year.)  

1. Targets for FY 2007 thru FY 2009 are lower than the FY 2005 result because past performance result levels suggest that the FY 2005 result may be unusually high.
2. This long-term measure does not have annual targets.
3. The baseline was calculated as the average of FY 1999 through FY 2001 data and is low because reported data inadvertently contained students (such as junior and high school students) who were in early education pipeline programs (such as HCOP) who were many years away from graduating from a health professions school and could not be clinicians in 1 year.
4. Service location data are collected on students who have been out of the HRSA program for 1 year.  The results listed in 2005 and 2006 are from programs that have the ability to produce clinicians 1-year post program graduation.

INTRODUCTION

The Health Professions program performance measures and activities build upon HRSA’s long-range goal to “Improve Access to Health Care” and are keyed to the following HRSA objectives:

• Promote the development of a diverse and culturally representative health care workforce
• Improve the distribution of health professions in underserved areas, including rural and border areas

Performance measure information is used by the program to highlight success in the program design and implementation and to identify areas that may require improvement.  A strategy for improving performance is to identify grantees that are better meeting program goals and the best practices of such programs.  These best practices may be encouraged through additional funding preferences and priorities during the grant-making process.  Also, performance information is used to provide technical assistance to grantees to help them gather better data.

DISCUSSION OF RESULTS AND TARGETS

Long-Term Objective:  Promote the development of a diverse and culturally representative health care workplace.

6.I.B.1.  Increase the proportion of graduates and program completers of Titles VII and VIII supported programs who are underrepresented minorities and/or from disadvantaged backgrounds.  
(Baseline - 2001:  42%)

In 2006, 37 percent of graduates and program completers of Titles VII and VIII supported programs were underrepresented minorities and/or from disadvantaged backgrounds.  This fell short of the FY 2006 target by 13 percentage points and was well short of the FY 2005 performance result of 57 percent.  (See section below on “Targets Substantially Exceeded or Not Met.”)  The target for FY 2008 and FY 2009 is 50 percent which is lower than the FY 2005 result because past performance results, including the FY 2006 result level, suggest that the FY 2005 result may have been unusually high and may be difficult to achieve.

6.1.  Increase the proportion of persons who have a specific source of ongoing care.

Access to a source of ongoing care does not directly reflect all of the specific activities of the Health Professions program.  However, over time, HRSA expected this program to contribute to increasing the proportion of persons with a specific source of ongoing care, through its support of training health professions in all settings.  The proportion has remained statistically unchanged over the past years. 

6.I.C.1.  Increase the proportion of trainees in Titles VII and VIII supported programs training in medically underserved communities.

The proportion of trainees in Titles VII and VIII supported programs training in medically underserved communities was 54 percent in 2006 which exceeded the target by 11 percentage points.  This represents an increase over the 2005 result of 40 percent, and is comparable to the 2004 result of 53 percent.  (See section below on “Targets Substantially Exceeded or Not Met.”) 

6.I.C.2.  Increase the percentage of health professionals supported by the program who enter practice in underserved areas.

The percentage of health professionals supported by the program entering practice in underserved areas was 35 percent in 2006.  The target for this measure was met.  The target for FY 2008 was left level at 35 percent as a maintenance level. 

6.E.  Maintain the average cost per graduate or program completer to the program of providing pipeline and formative education and training.

The efficiency measure for the Health Professions program is to maintain the average cost per graduate and program completer at $456. 

Per capita costs vary tremendously among these different types of programs, depending on the level of effort, and the length of the commitment required to complete them.  The baseline for FY 2004 ($456) represents the average cost per graduate or program completer to Title VII and Title VIII of providing pipeline formative education and training.  For FY 2005 and FY 2006, the average cost per graduate or program completer was $460.  The target for this measure was $456.  The number of programs in each category will change significantly in response to funding changes for Title VII and Title VIII and per capita costs will change accordingly.  Changes in tuition costs will also be an important factor.  The FY 2009 target is $456.

TARGETS SUBSTANTIALLY EXCEEDED OR NOT MET

Measure:  Increase the proportion of graduates and program completers of Titles VII and VIII supported programs who are underrepresented minorities and/or from disadvantaged backgrounds.

FY 2006 Target:  50 percent
FY 2006 Result:  37 percent

The Program’s target is ambitious because the baseline for this measure of 42 percent.  This measure may be understated because grantees in some States cannot, by law, collect race/ethnicity data.  A factor that may have contributed to the low FY 2006 result was the introduction of a new data collection system which collects disadvantaged status as well as ethnicity separately from racial background.  The introduction of the new system may have led to underreporting by grantees of race/ethnicity and disadvantaged status of program participants.  The target for FY 2008 and FY 2009 is 50 percent which is above the FY 2006 result because the program expects that as grantees become more accustomed to the enhanced data collection system more complete data will be collected.

Measure:  Increase the proportion of trainees in Titles VII and VIII supported programs training in medically underserved communities.

FY 2006 Target:  43 percent
FY 2006 Result:  54 percent

The result for this measure exceeded the target by 11 percentage points.  The Program removed from the calculation of performance for this measure those training programs inappropriate for the measure.  That is, programs such as continuing education programs for health professionals are no longer included in the calculation.  Future targets for this measure will be set to 54 percent as a maintenance level.  There are natural limiting factors such as the location of health professions schools and the organizations they work with to provide training opportunities in medically underserved communities.  Therefore, it would be difficult to estimate significant improvements in this area.  The Program will continue to emphasize to training programs the critical importance of this measure and to strategize with the grantees on how to improve performance in this area.