[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;

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    (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:

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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: 
[email protected].

    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